“As soon as we start to dismantle those ways that we are trapped, we are able to free up so much energy and become more ready for wealth.” - Emerald Greenforest
Are you ready for a wealthy life? Take on the wealthy life challenge! In this episode, Shirley and Emerald discuss how to be wealthy beyond the monetary concept. Emerald talks about the aspects of a wealthy life, how to spot imbalances in any of these aspects, the w’s that ward-off money, the Wealthy Life Method, and more! Tune in and create a wealthy life by design!
Highlights:
01:34 Always In Evolution
05:23 Wickedly Smart Women
09:01 T-H-I-E-F
13:23 Wealthy Life Method
21:53 Ask For Help
28:54 Start With Imagination
Resources:
Tweets:
We are in a time of powerful changes. But can these changes propel you to what you want? Listen in as @SfbaldwinOwens and @awyldfyre discuss how to become wickedly smart and live a wealthy life! #getwhatyouwant #wickedlysmart #wealth #imagination #mentor #time #THIEF #W’swardoffwealth
Quotes:
07:30 “Wealthy life is a life that's a work of art.” - Emerald Greenforest
14:00 “Imagination is the place where both intellect and intuition are melded in this beautiful divine union.” - Emerald Greenforest
16:12 “Wake up and walk away from what's not working right.” - Emerald Greenforest
22:29 “Be mindful because those complaints are actually showing you what you don't want... and there's no clear path to walking away from what you don't want, then you're just going to create more of the same.” - Emerald Greenforest
23:30 “Perfectionism is selfishness...the concern is more about how you look than whether or not you are actually helping someone.” - Emerald Greenforest
27:20 “Open up your awareness to what you really want until you get clear on what you don't want.” - Emerald Greenforest
27:37 “As soon as we start to dismantle those ways that we are trapped, we are able to free up so much energy and become more ready for wealth.” - Emerald Greenforest
30:40 “Gratitude is the currency of the universe and currency is gratitude in action.” - Emerald Greenforest
Connect With Emerald:
The Wealthy Life Mentor, Emerald Greenforest is the Founder and Lead Visionary of the Creative Age Consulting Group and an internationally known Speaker and Transformation Artist. Emerald is one of America's Premier Experts on creating conscious change and living a Wealthy Life by Design™. She is the creator of the Apple Top 50 ranked Men On Purpose Podcast, which she recently sold and the creator, executive producer and host of the Apple number one, internationally ranked Wickedly Smart Women Podcast. Emerald’s clients are high achieving leaders who are called to be the Vanguard of the creative age.
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Transcriptions
Shirley Owens: My guest today is Emerald Greenforest. She is the founder and lead visionary of Creative Age Consulting Group, the wealthy life mentor, and an internationally known speaker and transformation artist. Emerald is a Be The Change “Movement To Watch” Award Winner and one of America's Premier Experts. She is the creator of the Apple top 50 ranked, Men On Purpose Podcast which she recently sold, and the creator, executive producer, and host of the Apple #1 internationally ranked Wickedly Smart Women Podcast. Emerald's clients are high achieving leaders who are called to be the vanguard of the creative age.
Welcome Emerald.
Emerald GreenForest: Thank you so much for having me Shirley, I'm so excited to be here.
Shirley Owens: I'm so excited to have you. I met you a couple of years at The New Media Summit, and I just loved who you were. And I know by reading your bio and learning more about you that you've created something even better and different during this time that I have been away from you. I just want you to tell me kind of what you're doing now and talk about the podcasts that you just sold, because that's one that I knew from, and then what you have going on right now.
Emerald GreenForest: Sure. Well, I think the thing that I really want to underscore is that we're always in evolution, right, Shirley. So no matter where we are in our journey, we are invited, especially women entrepreneurs, where we're always invited into evolving ourselves to the next thing, tapping into our creative power. And I think right now, the important thing to underscore, culturally and globally, we're actually being asked to adapt. We're being asked to evolve, we're being asked to do new things. And so, yeah, I started the Wickedly Smart Women Podcast about a year after Men On Purpose launched. I said: "Okay, well now, I'm going to do some work with women as well." I had my previous Men On Purpose, I had actually had an 8 to 10 year business where I was mostly serving women entrepreneurs and helping them feel great, speaking and powerful asking for money. And then when I started my podcasting journey, Men On Purpose came through and I just got really called to serve men. And what ended up happening with that podcast is it actually became a very powerful healing journey for me. Because I had spent most of my life in relationships with men where I felt either abused, or there was addiction involved, or I felt really alienated. Like I just didn't get them, they didn't get me. And it took some pretty traumatic experiences in my life before I finally woke up to the fact that, Oh, I was the single unifying thread in all of those relationships. And so when I got called to do the Men On Purpose Podcast, I was like, why am I being called to do that? But I follow my guidance, I follow the calling, I've been guided by spirit. GBS., I've been on the GBS systems since, probably 2001. So when the calling came to do that podcast, I just said: "Yes." And then ultimately, it became clear that I was complete, like the work, my own inner work and the work that the podcast was doing in the world that I had come to a place where I was feeling complete with it. And so at the last New Media Summit, it just so happened that there was somebody there who was expressing into the mastermind group of the icons after the event. He was expressing some stuff and I just was like, I wonder if I should offer the podcast to him for sale. And so I did. And he said, yes. And we made a deal, and took about a month to get all of the stuff transferred over, and now he has it in his stewardship. And I started a wickedly smart woman, probably six months before that. So yeah, it just became clear that I was complete with Men On Purpose, and I had a huge healing as a result of it. Like every single episode, like a healing experience for me,
Shirley Owens: That is awesome. I know I also worked with men before I wrote my book for women, and so it was interesting because that almost sounds like a little bit of the same path. I worked in Major League Baseball and all of my clients were men, and I realized that I needed to do work with women. And now I work with both again, but for a like I needed that time with men and then I needed that time with women and now I might do the middleware. I have a really good understanding of both. And it sounds like you're in that, on that same type of path. So that's awesome. I love it. Tell me about your new podcast.
Emerald GreenForest: Yeah, so Wickedly Smart Women is really a place where my intention is to elevate, celebrate the spotlight, what I call Wickedly Smart Women. And, you know, it's pretty much like the mirror image of the Men On Purpose Podcast. The purpose is really to attract both wickedly smart women to be guests, but also wickedly smart women to be listeners, or wickedly smart women in the making for those listeners to really give them an opportunity to know that it's possible. Whatever it is, it's possible. If it's possible for me, it's possible for you. If it's possible for you, it's possible for me. So I have such a wide variety of guests. I really love it. I love interviewing, I do a great job at it. You know, it's one of my gifts. I'm very, very gifted. I'm wickedly smart. So when you find things that you really enjoy and that you're gifted in, it's a great thing. So I've had so many amazing wickedly smart women on the show, marketers, health people, the most recent episode that I had was a woman who started the grow network and she teaches people how to grow half their own food in the backyard.
Shirley Owens: Wow.
Emerald GreenForest: Yeah. So there's just such amazing, amazing, amazing people in the world. And so I love the show because I'm learning. I'm also getting the opportunity to say: "Oh, if she can do it, I can do it too." So I planted some peas on the back porch after. I did that interview.
Shirley Owens: I love that.
Emerald GreenForest: Yeah.
Shirley Owens: Wow.
Emerald GreenForest: And the other thing that's clear to me, I love what you said about, you spent some time working with men and then you started working with women. I was the opposite. I did a lot of work with women then I worked with men. Now, it's like a blend of both things. But another thing that's coming for me, I have a lot of podcast ideas. So I'm definitely thinking about doing a couple different potential new podcasts, but I'm also in a creation zone where I'm helping people to really craft a life for themselves, that is what I call The Wealthy Life. And The Wealthy Life is a life that's a work of art. So for me as a creator, my wealthy life includes creating new stuff because I'm like always creating whether it's a piece of art, or whether it's peas on the back porch, or whether it's a new podcast, or whether it's a certification program, which I'm also in the process of doing right now. I'm creating a certification program to help people become certified intuitive advisors and to use their wicked smarts to, both the intelligence as well as the intuitive smart to be able to help more people in the world. Because we're in a time of really powerful changes.
“Wealthy life is a life that's a work of art.” - Emerald Greenforest
Shirley Owens: For sure. I think that, I mean, I know that when people think about wealth, they think about money, right? And I mean, obviously this is the Get What You Want Podcasts, and I know that society creates this thing of what you want. One of those things that people want is money and wealth. And sometimes we hear money and wealth, but people really put those together as the same thing. So can you speak into a little bit more about that? I love the idea that it's like a healthy life or wealthy life mentor. Healthy, wealthy, same thing, life mentor. And I know that that's how I see my life as wealthy. And, yes, there's a sufficient amount of money, but there's also so many other things that, to me as well, and that's yeah, that's our health, and our wellness, and our family, you know.
Emerald GreenForest: Well, you're saying exactly what my definition of wealth is. So I actually use the word thief. I use the word thief, T-H-I-E-F, to have a little mnemonic device to define what wealth is for me. And wealth for me is the sum total of all of the resources that we have available to us. And it's helpful to use the word thief because when we're not aligned with our own wealthy life by design, then we are actually stealing from one or more of these places. We're stealing from ourselves. We are thieving from ourselves. So it's time, Time is the first aspect of a wealthy life. How we spend our time, who we spend our time with, what we spend our time doing. Health is the second, which you've already mentioned. The I is our imagination, our intellect, our intuition, right? That's a resource. Our imagination is a huge resource. And that includes our intellect and intuition that are kind of married. Our imagination is where our intellect and our intuition are married. And then E, which is like one fifth of this equation, E is the exchange of energy, the exchange of time or value for money. So it's only 20% for me. A wealthy life, I'm only focusing 20% of my attention on the money piece, the exchange piece, because otherwise I'm stealing from all these other wonderful places. And then the F is fun with our friends, family and fellow travelers on the journey. So my definition of wealth is really the sum total of all of those resources that we have available to us.
Shirley Owens: Well, I feel like we could just stop right now. And I think that's such a beautiful explanation because definitely, you know, money, health, family, but like, bring that other thing in of the intellect intuition, what was the third, I?
Emerald GreenForest: Imagine.
Shirley Owens: Oh, my gosh, imagination is such a huge thing. I think that children these days really have lacked in that because of the video games, the social media, the immediate stimuli, and I've noticed that a lot with my younger kids and their friends, that type of thing, that imagination was such a big part for me and it still is. I still daydream, I still imagine what a vacation is going to be, I have a lot more enjoyment planning a vacation. I totally enjoy taking them too, but I just love the planning. I have as much enjoyment out of that. And also with my business, I am also creating an online course right now. And just the excitement and enjoyment of doing that, of doing my podcast, of writing my books, all of these things, I could never do without that daydreaming, and imagination, and the intuitive and intellect. I'm really loving this. So when someone comes to you, I know that you work with a lot of high achieving individuals, and I believe like in my experience with people like that, they're very heavy in one of those areas usually. So tell me when someone comes to you that isn't balancing these, take me kind of through what you would do with those.
Emerald GreenForest: Yeah, well great. So what I do is I actually have my Wealthy Life Method. My Wealthy Life Method is a seven step process that I take people through to help them. And if they're imbalanced in one or more of those areas, generally speaking, where I see imbalance is in the, I, where they are more leaning towards their intellect and further away from their intuition so they've pushed their intuition off to one side. The work there is to really bring those two into balance then you can get to the imagination, because the imagination is really that place where both intellect and intuition are melded in this beautiful divine union, and that's where magic happens. I mean, the word magic is almost IN THE WORD imagination, I-M-A-G-I, right? I am a magi, I am a magical person, I'm a magical being. And to the point that you made about the younger generation being completely absorbed, like our imagination is very visual for most people. Like when we're imagining, we're dreaming, we're seeing with our inner vision, we're really seeing like when I just came back from camping and I love the prep as much as I love camping trip too. Like you said, you love planning the vacation. Because when I'm planning, I'm actually using my imagination. Like, Oh, I'm going to have a tent, and I'm going to put my sleeping bag here, and I'm going to, I need to have these clothes. And Oh, I see myself in my bathing suit, like, you're literally seeing yourself into whatever it is that you're creating. And so in our culture, the vision has now been locked onto a screen. A lot of people have gotten locked on to a screen, and so it causes our inner vision to actually start to atrophy. So I do a lot of work with people in that area, the I, and then the energy exchange and fun, those two areas. But you know, when you're often one, you're going to have, it's a holistic thing, Shirley, if you're often one, you're going to have problems in the others. But what I also see is in the energy exchange, a lot of times they're so focused on the money that they lose sight of the fun, or they lose their health, or they have no more time left because they've consumed all of their time with the creation of the money piece. So when I work with people through the wealthy life method, the first thing we do is we look at what's not working. We go through a process, I take them through a process. Step one is wake up and walk away from what's not working.
“Imagination is the place where both intellect and intuition are melded in this beautiful divine union.” - Emerald Greenforest
Shirley Owens: Easier said than done.
Emerald GreenForest: Totally easier said than done. So one way I people in this particular step is I actually give them a clear definition of the ways that they are warding off their wealthy life. And there are five ways that we ward off wealth. One is we worry. And that's how we get hooked up in that money thing. One is we worry. Two is we waffle, we can't make a decision like, Oh, should I go over here? Should I go over here? Should I take that cruise for $10,000? Or should I invest $10,000 into my entrepreneurship? And you're like, cruise ship, entrepreneurship, cruise ship, entrepreneurship before you know it both have gone.
Shirley Owens: Yeah.
Emerald GreenForest: Both have taken and you're still sitting there. So waffling is the second way that we ward off wealth. Withdrawing is the third way. That's like, looks like, okay, we get ourselves out there, we go to maybe an event or something like the New Media Summit, we get all excited, and we have our imagination triggered and we're like, Oh, my God, I could make a podcast. Or I could be on stage, or I could speak, or I could make a course, or I could do all of these things. And then we go home and we pull back, we pull our energy back. And when we withdraw that wards off wealth. And then the fourth way that we award off wealth is when we are waiting on. And waiting on is an interesting one because, particularly for women, a lot of times for women, when we're waiting on, it's like we're waiting on the handsome prince to show up and rescue us, that's one way of waiting on. The other way of waiting on is we're so busy waiting on everyone else. We're waiting on our kids, we're waiting on our husband, we're waiting on our boss, we're waiting on our clients, we're taken like a servant rather than in service.
Shirley Owens: Right.
Emerald GreenForest: That wards off wealth as well, when you're either completely consumed with people pleasing and taking care of everyone else, or you're sitting there like, when's my handsome Prince gonna come and just put that glass slipper on my foot and carry me away. And then the final one is whining. Whining where you get in with often a group of people, often with women whining over wine and you sit together and you're just like having a bitch session. And what happens when you're doing that is you're actually not only bringing your own lower vibration, like complaint energy into this group, but the whole group starts to collude with your story so they add their energy to it. And then if you're drinking wine on top of it, that's lowering everybody's vibration and that's just a nasty mess. So yeah, we look at those things and see where it is that the person that I'm working with is kind of most activating those ways that we ward off wealth and then you can make a choice so that you can wake up and walk away from all of that.
“Wake up and walk away from what's not working right.” - Emerald Greenforest
Shirley Owens: I love this. I love this so much because so much of it resonates with me and you have the words and the method that kind of goes along with that because I definitely see the bashing, you know, bashing of husbands. That's even in my book, we talk about that. And I've been to many places where they just, I talk a lot about searching for what you are looking for. So if we're searching for negativity, we're going to have an abundance of it. If we're searching for positivity, we're gonna have abundance of it. And I think a lot of people, they just don't realize that what they're looking for, they're getting, so they're actually recreating all of the disasters that are around them. And oftentimes I'm in a situation. And I'm thinking like I'll have a moment of low as me. And I just think like I have to remind myself what I would tell my clients. Who am I being that has this happening around me? Or has this person trading in that way or has, anything that's going on, like who am I being that has that? And so I love that you talk about this. I know, like with my podcast, when I came home from New Media Summit, I didn't even go there wanting to create a podcast. And I came home, I met a bunch of friends there, and I got all the equipment that I needed, and then I sat on it for like six months because I had no clue what to do. And it's very easy to withdraw. It's very easy to do that, to step back and think, okay, I'm going to do that eventually. I'm going to do that eventually. And I have to come back to my own coaching a lot and realize what would I have my clients do? So I got up each morning, I set an intention, I learned how to do this thing. I put all the work in time and energy and sewed all the pieces together. I hired the people that I needed to hire to help me. And I created it and I launched it. And it was the same thing with my book, and it's the same thing with this online course. I feel like this interview was meant to be today because I've been working so hard on this course, but I haven't launched it. I need to take a massive imperfect action and just do it because I'm waiting for everything to be perfect. I'm waiting for all the little pieces to, you know, I want it to look perfect and be perfect. I want to make sure that all my videos are -- and it's hard because they're never going to be perfect. I know that, and I keep thinking, well, maybe just a little bit better, a little bit. So this interview with you is making me so happy because I think it's going to, I'm getting this coaching right now if I need to not wait for everything to be perfect and I need to just get this launched. So thank you for that explanation. And I think a lot of people are resonating with that right now.
“Perfectionism is selfishness...the concern is more about how you look than whether or not you are actually helping someone.” - Emerald Greenforest
Emerald GreenForest: Well, let me also say a couple of things. First around the whining, it's important to not deny if you are having a challenge. However, it is equally important to get help for the challenge where you invest with a mentor, a coach, a therapist, whatever rather than having the whining session with your girlfriends, or your guy friends, or whatever. So I want to be clear that I don't want people to think that I'm saying you can never complain. What I am saying is be mindful because those complaints are actually showing you what you don't want. But if you energize it with a bunch of other people's energy that brings everything down and there's no clear path to walking away from what you don't want, then you're just going to create more of the same, like you said. So that's one thing. And then the second thing on the waiting on, one thing that I want to just drop into your pond, Shirley, on the waiting on. Again, if you find yourself waiting on, that's usually a sign that it's time to invest with a mentor, or a coach, or a therapist, or to get help, to ask for help. If there's one thing that I wish that I had been given more awareness of in my own 20 plus year, 30 plus year entrepreneurial journey is asking for help is okay. Not only is it okay, it's actually really wise to ask for help. And this whole idea of perfectionism is actually selfishness because the concern is more about how you look than whether or not you are actually helping someone.
“Be mindful because those complaints are actually showing you what you don't want... and there's no clear path to walking away from what you don't want, then you're just going to create more of the same.” - Emerald Greenforest
Shirley Owens: So true. So true. I actually have a part in my online course that I'm waiting to launch because of that. One of my modules talks about coaching because I am a coach and I have a lot of clients that have come to me and I've been able to give them that push, but it's really hard for me sometimes to see it from the outside. When you're inside, you can't see it from outside. And so I've hired, I mean, I had a book coach. I had someone helped me that coached me through my podcast set up. I've definitely had a coach with this creation of this course. And yeah, at first you're kind of like, I want to be able to do it all myself. And if I'm not doing it all myself, am I even worthy of teaching this, or creating this? And I think it's important for us to know where our talents lie. I realized that I've done so many things that have taken my time and energy that I didn't have to do, that I was able to delegate out. And at first I thought I had to do everything. And so, yeah, you're right. I totally agree with you. And I see it when you're saying that like, Oh, my gosh, it's time for me to just do something and quit worrying about that. Because when we are worried about ourselves, it takes away from all the service that we're creating for other people. And there are people that I know need my course right now, but I just have been dragging my feet a little bit. So I agree. And I really want to emphasize what you said about, it's okay. It's even more than okay to hire out people like you and I, and all these coaches who are really, really able to just see all your goodness from the outside and be able to guide you through that. So thank you for that.
Emerald GreenForest: Yeah. And I think one of the most important things a mentor does is they actually see who you are in your highest potential. They are able to see when you're turning, when you're turning and burning. Often, we turn and burn, and we burn our credit cards or we burn our health. Are turning and burning because we're actually indulging our inner three-year-old. It's like, I want to do it myself. And when I first got into this business, I left real estate. I was in the real estate business for 20 years. And when I left the real estate business and got into this business, I literally taught myself HTML to figure out how to do my own website 20 years ago. And in retrospect, it would have been a different path for me, but it's the path that I took. But in retrospect, if I could exercise my asking for help muscle, even more, that would be the thing I would tell my younger self, just ask for more help. And be willing to invest, be willing to invest.
Shirley Owens: That's awesome. I want to, like, usually at the end of my show, I always ask my guests what it is that they would do differently. And I love that as what you would do differently, ask for help. I think we just let pride and ego get in the way sometimes. And we think that we have to, I did do my website by myself and I'm like, why did I spend it, it took me so long, now I still have to Google every time I want to add some changes and I've turned over a lot of things. I've let go of a lot of things. And I think it's so great because when we do let go of the things that aren't necessarily, we have so much more space to be able to create from our true self. So that's beautiful.
“As soon as we start to dismantle those ways that we are trapped, we are able to free up so much energy and become more ready for wealth.” - Emerald Greenforest
Emerald GreenForest: Exactly. Yeah. And then that's step two of the wealthy life method, evaluate what you really want, which is kind of basically what we're here doing with this podcast. What is it that you really want? But you can't even open up your awareness to what you really want until you get clear on what you don't want, what you need to walk away from, the ways that you are trapped intuitively, or intellectually, or with your time, or all these ways that we're trapped. As soon as we start to dismantle those ways that we are trapped, we are able to free up so much energy and become more ready for wealth, which leads me to something that I have, for your folks, which is my Wealth Readiness Quiz. And it's a really fun quiz, you can take an under five minutes and it will give you a score as to what level of wealth readiness that you are at. And there's three different levels of wealth readiness. So I would love to have folks who are interested, who resonate with some of the things that I said or most of what I said, anybody who feels like I might be a good fit mentor for you, please feel free to take the quiz at quiz.wealthylifementor.com. And if you know that it's time for you to become certified as an intuitive advisor, I am prepping that right now. I don't know when this podcast is coming out. So circle back around with me after you hear this podcast, you might be hearing this podcast three years from now. Circle back around with me if you feel like you'd like to become a certified intuitive advisor, and we'll see if it's a fit for us to play together.
“Open up your awareness to what you really want until you get clear on what you don't want.” - Emerald Greenforest
Shirley Owens: I love that. That will also be on my website in the show notes. So if anyone missed it, then they'll be able to grab it there. So tell me what bit of advice would you give to my listeners today? Just today to start living this wealthy life, just to start it, where would they start?
Emerald GreenForest: Well, I think that the first place you want to start is with your imagination.
Shirley Owens: My favorite part.
Emerald GreenForest: We talked so much about imagination. Really look at how you can dismantle your addiction to scrolling. Take some time, stop the world, this is a shamanic technique that I'm trained in. I'm trained in the Inca tradition in shamanism. And one of the things I learned was stopping the world. We got to stop the world and clear the altar of our life in order to open up the space to be able to imagine what else is possible. And everything that we're trapped in right now has to be looked at and selected if we want to carry it forward with us, or if we want to leave it behind us. So just making those sacred spaces and stopping the world to indulge in your imagination is what I would say would be the first thing that I would recommend for everyone.
Shirley Owens: I love imagination. You are definitely a wickedly smart woman. I am super honored that you have chosen to be here with me today, so thank you so much. And I can't wait to learn more from you. And I'm sure there are so many listeners that will also feel the same way. So thank you for being here.
Emerald GreenForest: Thank you so much for having me, Shirley. It's my pleasure. I'm really grateful too, thank you. Gratitude is the currency of the universe, and currency is gratitude in action.
“Gratitude is the currency of the universe and currency is gratitude in action.” - Emerald Greenforest
Shirley Owens: You have so much wisdom. Thank you. I feel grateful.
Emerald GreenForest: Thank you for having me.