EB_header.png

Living Life on a Walk-About without Bank Accounts or Credit Cards: A Conversation with Lenedra Carroll

Nov 062012
 

On the November 6, 2012 Wealth Psychology Show at Sylvia Global Radio, Emily interviewed author, musician, poet, and luminary, Lenedra Carroll about her experiences over 4 years without having an income, home, or bank accounts.

In the course of our conversation we explored some of Lenedra’s wisdom regarding what it means to be human and spiritual — living fully and passionately from moment to moment.

Lenedra shared how she had to learn to dis-identify with how things had always been done — shifting from being a “mover and shaker” to slowing down and listening to the quiet core of self.

While she closed her bank accounts and cut up her credit cards, she did not simply live off others – she welcomed and received gifts — such as air miles that made it possible to travel to Alaska to see her mother when she was in the hospital — and she also looked at ways to exchange her gifts and talents in return.

She discovered what it was like to flow from a place of peace and trust, and also speaks about that which robs us from being able to live from that place all the time –

1. How the mind questions and worries, wanting to know and have certainty.

2. How others question us and our choices and uncertainty.  Simply not having a particular home caused people to feel uncomfortable, worried, fearful, or intrigued when they’d meet Lenedra.

We explored Lenedra’s definition of “enlightenment” and her approach to spirituality, and what it means to live from true grace.

At the end of the show, we offered the following to our listeners:

Evocative Question: How much do you long for that peace and spiritual experience to be the core of your experience of life?

Inspiring Invitation: What is it you long for? more space? more peace? more joy? more time to be with yourself, with those you love?  We invite you to name it and declare one way you will begin to cultivate even a few moments of it in your life -
perhaps through taking 10 breaths before making an important phone call; perhaps in putting on a favorite, uplifting song to listen to when you are feeling particularly stretched or stressed – using whatever you find helps to bring you back to that quiet center inside.

Useful Tools:
Gratitude/Passion/Pearls Journal — a place to capture your moments of connection, of peace, of joy, of flow… to cultivate you having more of what you long for each and every day.

Sharing Dinner Together — having quality time where you are present with each other has been show to make the biggest positive impact in the lives of your family members.  You may want to have a game that you play as a family that has everyone engaged, such as “High/Low” where everyone shares a high point of their day and a low point and the other members of the family listen.

Book: The Architecture of All Abundance by Lenedra Carroll – where each chapter illustrates ways of incorporating more of what you want at the core of your life to be expressed in every domain of life (health, work, family, money, time…)

 November 6, 2012  Posted by at 6:59 pm Children, Family, Legacy, Parenting, Wealth Psychology, Women and Wealth, women wealth and well being , , , , , ,  No Responses »

Wealth Psychology and the “Architecture of Health” with Lenedra Carroll

Oct 302012
 

On Sylvia Global Radio, on Tuesday, Oct. 30th, 2012 Emily has a conversation with Lenedra Carroll, who authored The Architecture of All Abundance and founded the non-profit, “Higher Ground for Humanity”.  Lenedra developed and managed the career of the artist, Jewel, and is also Jewel’s mother.

Together, Emily and Lenedra explore what Lenedra has discovered over the years in the realm of the “Architecture of Health”, with specific attention on the emotions, and also on intuition and how to trust your inner-voice when it comes to your own health and healing.

Take Aways:

  • Evocative Question: What aspect of your physical health needs attention?
  • Inspiring Invitation: “No body, nobody!” Choose a particular time of year to have your annual exam and put it on your recurring calendar: pap, breast exam (mammogram or better), blood panel – and then call your doctor/s and schedule your appointments for 2013.
  • Useful Tools:

This show is live and listeners call, tweet, and email from all over the world – here’s how;

Questions from listeners: call in number: (347) 215-6138

#wealthpsychology via twitter

email questions to: listeners@sylviaglobal.com — enter “Wealth Psychology” in the subject line.

 October 30, 2012  Posted by at 3:53 am wealth and health, Wealth Psychology, Women and Wealth, women wealth and well being, women's health , , , , ,  No Responses »

Successful Techie Women and Fashion Sense makes Good Sense

Aug 062012
 

Silicon Valley women execs were front and center in the Sunday Styles section of the New York Times on August 5th in an article focused on how “Techies Break a Fashion Taboo.”  According to the article it seems in the San Francisco Bay Area “a growing group of women is bucking convention not only by being women in a male dominated industry, but also by unabashedly embracing fashion.”

 

Savvy designers are designing for women in the tech world because those women are seen as an influential force and an important and growing demographic worth paying attention to – now and in the foreseeable future.  According to one designer, Stacey Bendet Eisner, of Alice and Olivia, women in the tech field “want an element of sophistication to their clothes because they want to be taken seriously.”  Ironically, one chief executive, Ruzwana Bashir, of Peek, a travel start up, was surprised that some people in the Bay Area were distrustful of fashion. “Perhaps they think they’re not taken seriously if they make an effort. In the end, I’d rather wear a nice dress, and if someone is not going to take me seriously, that’s so superficial…You can be this super-successful woman who’s smart and effective but still feminine.”

 

The article highlights the fact that only 5% of executives in high tech are women, and only 11% are tech investors.  Given the low numbers, there can be advantages to bringing attention to yourself via your style. One investor, Theresia Gouw Ranzetta, from Accel Partners, a venture capital firm, explains: “When it’s a sea of young guys in jeans and hoodies, and the V.C.’s are in their khakis and button-down uniform, it’s kind of a benefit to be different.”

 

Magaly Masci, French-born, senior vice president with Morgan Stanley Smith Barney and an international advocate in women’s leadership, is a self-described “fashionista” who loves to dress with class and sophistication in the workplace and having fun with casual attire.  When asked about her impressions of the article, Masci gave her point of view:  “What is truly important is understanding that fashion is another way of expressing yourself and it represents something different for everyone.  As such you should embrace your fashion sense with pride. Whatever your style is, it is yours and women should be encouraged to find their own fashion statement within the workplace, whether it is tech, financial industry, law, accounting or leading a company.”

 

Marissa Mayer, Yahoo’s new chief executive sums up the connection of fashion to technology in a powerful way: “My willingness to talk about [fashion] is because I believe the way we’ll get more people into computer science and ultimately more women into computer science is by making it really clear that you can be yourself and don’t need to give up parts of yourself to succeed.”

 

For more on the power of fashion and great conversations about women and fashion, listen to Sylvia Global’s interview with Randolf Duke on the Beauty of a Woman Inside  AND Sylvia Global’s interview with Keith Holman on how Fashion Instills Confidence.

 August 6, 2012  Posted by at 4:19 am Women and Wealth , , , , , ,  No Responses »

Philanthropic Journeys: Connecting Family Travel, Values and Giving

Jul 062012
 

Enjoy this guest post from Melanie Hamburger from Catalytic Women:

I was talking recently with a member of Catalytic Women and mentioned the topic of connecting family travel plans with our values of giving back. (Catalytic Women hosts a free webinar on this topic on July 11, so it must have been on my mind! Click here to RSVP).  The story she shared about her family’s philanthropic journeys is worth repeating. I loved it as an example of how we share our passions with others and, in particular, the multifaceted roles of women as providers, nurturers and educators.

 

Her parents founded a business together. Perhaps this formed their culture of aligning family values, good fortune and lifelong learning. As her mom considered retiring she reflected on her love of traveling. What began as special trips with her children – celebrating her daughters’ 30th and 40th birthdays in Africa or India; a coming of age trip when each grandchild turned 10 – morphed into a travel business. Completely self-taught, she modeled her trips on well-known destination planners but then did it her own way, adding shared local experiences such as volunteering. Her philanthropic journeys included family and shaped her new “post-retirement” career.

 

Most of us have good intentions to create these kinds of experiences for our own families – as we plan travels to local or far-flung destinations. But how can we truly make the most out of our summer travel plans, without it feeling like one more thing to do… to research… to figure out… to do well?

 

I’m interested in ways that you include children of any age in planning your travels. How do you bring giving into vacations and ignite their curiosity about others?

 

Intense school homework loads, competitive sports and omnipresent technological distractions have never made it harder to carve out “quality” family time. And who wants the killjoy of insisting that these rare times together include “learning” and “giving”? Getting our kids excited about where we’re going and what we can do together shouldn’t feel so hard.

 

Surely, there must be some examples of ways to bring out the best in ourselves as we travel together that feel do-able for busy families! Let’s get past that self-inflicted goal of perfect parenting. Let’s just start with what we can do now.

 

It’s not too late to make this summer vacation a time of travel and connecting as a family. Share your experiences with us. How do you and your family unplug from day to day responsibilities, emails, and electronics, so that you can use the precious few weeks of summer to plug into experiences that instill a sense of resilience and appreciation, and expand the hearts and minds of your children?

 

We’ll share your stories on July 11, when Catalytic Women founder Melanie Hamburger taps the expertise of Jamie Traeger-Muney and Emily Bouchard of Wealth Legacy Group by sharing real life stories, examples and results from philanthropic journeys. Join this conversation about women, wealth and philanthropy on travel and children. Share and learn how to engage multiple generations in the planning and implementing of family travel and giving experiences – tapping the nature of our “true wealth.” Regardless of age, or even if we define family as a group of our closest friends, the spirit of our summer travel get us thinking about our impact on the larger world around us.

 

Contact us with your ideas, successes and challenges. To join the July 11 webinar, register here.

 

 July 6, 2012  Posted by at 9:24 pm Adviser education, Advisers, Advisor Education, Children, Family, Legacy, Stepchildren, Wealth Psychology, Women and Wealth , , , , , , ,  No Responses »

How do you Define Success?

Apr 222012
 

I’ve been working with women recently who the outside world would consider to be highly successful, yet they feel unfulfilled and self-doubt riddles their lives.  We work together to look at how they personally define success, as well as what messages they received in their lives related to success have “stuck” and influenced them the most.

My stepmother recently wrote about what has inspired her related to success and I wanted to pass along her research here:

According to B.J. Gallagher,  women want Success, defined as Self-acceptance and self-love; Unlimited happiness and fulfillment; Contribution and service to others; Commitment to relationships; Energy and Enthusiasm for life; Self-determination; and Spiritual growth and Serenity. Success is as much about who you’re being as what you’re doing.  Success is not a destination – it’s the journey.  Such is spoken about life.

How do you define success for yourself? Do you feel successful? What would it take to experience success fully in your heart and mind?

 April 22, 2012  Posted by at 7:01 pm Wealth Psychology, Women and Wealth , ,  No Responses »
© 2012 Emily Bouchard | 336 Bon Air Center, #145 · Greenbrae, CA 94904 | info@emilybouchard.com