Natalie:

Hi everyone, my name is Natalie Ledwell and this is The Inspiration Show! Today on the show, my special guest is beaming all the way in from New Zealand, but before I introduce her, I just want to let you know that if you are watching this show on YouTube, make sure that that you quickly fill out the 30-second quiz that's below this video, after you've watched the show, so we can find out what's blocking you from success. And of course if you're watching this on MindMovies.com, you can leave your email after the show so we can send you the Manifesting with the Masters video e-course for free! So please let me introduce you to my special guest today, the amazing Emma Mildon! How are you Emma?

Emma:

Hi Natalie, how are you going?

Natalie:

I'm going fabulously well! Now like I said, you are coming all the way from New Zealand. You are the author of “The Soul Searcher’s Handbook”. You also a regular contributor to mindbodygreen with your writing articles and things. They were just fantastic. You are what represents the new generation of the transformational leader that's coming through today, so I'm really happy to have you here and you have a very inspiring story because I know that for you to get to this point, you actually had to go through a lot of challenges to get here. So well, why don't we start first with your story - like how did you get into doing this type of work and get to this point?

Emma:

Yeah, thanks Natalie! So I think when I got asked to share my story with The Inspiration Show, I thought it was so important that I share the challenges and obstacles and struggles in order to get here. I think so many people are excited to hear the success stories, but I haven't heard the processes or the journey and so yes -- I am the author of the best selling book: “The Soul Searcher’s Handbook”. Has it been an easy road? No. And would I change that? Definitely not. So I, like many of you, wanted to share my story with the world. And I traveled, I met medicinemen, shamen, tea leaf readers, and palm readers, and Reiki specialists, healers, priests, authors, celebrities, and really tapped into what spiritual life - a life of meaning- and how to live well meant for them. And as a result,  I ended up writing “The Soul Searcher’s Handbook”, which is essentially a book for the next generation of new-age movers and shakers and new thought leaders. Yes, it’s a spiritual read, but it's very much like a smorgasbord; you take what you like and you leave the rest. No rules. No right or wrong. It’s all about building your own holistic lifestyle. Yeah, so I had this book with me, I traveled the world, I was full of hopes and dreams, and then I tried to get it published, and I ended up getting – Natalie, you will love this - nearly three hundred rejection emails. My inbox essentially was where my dreams go to die.Yeah, it was such a process of getting up, down and sent back up again. And for me, a real test to learn how much I wanted it and why I wanted it.

Natalie:

Yeah, so I have to ask, what was the fascination? What was the burning desire? Was there an event that made you think ‘I really need to write a book like this’?

Emma:

You know it's so weird, and I could say the token “a psychic told me”, and that would be true as well, but I think it was more of an internal knowing. I mean you know when you have that itch, that soul-calling, and it just won't go away. It's just like that annoying neighbor that just won't shut up. I had that, and it didn’t matter how many rejection emails I got, I just knew that it was something I needed to pursue and I knew I would regret it one day if I didn't and at least try.

Natalie:

Well I mean you look fairly young to me. I am assuming that you're in your thirties, right? [Emma agrees]. But for you to be so tapped in and so aware and have a yearning like that at your age, I think is amazing. And then to actually take action on this. So is that part of the message of the book? For people that are feeling this regardless of what age you are, that you should really follow what that intuition is?

Emma: 4:49

100%! Your intuition is never wrong! And I’m sure we’ve been all there when we haven't listened to it, and it's pretty much like a roll-your-eyes and a shoot-your-head emoji. It's just something that is yelling at you. I think sometimes I joke that my spirit guides would stand behind me rolling their eyes, because I don't know how many times they even had to tell me and I don't know pick up on messages and it’s human nature. I think the book, “The Soul Searcher’s Handbook” and a lot of my blogs, especially all about how can you find tools to listen more and awaken and become more conscious of every extra movement attitude and thought, what you focus on and every day of your life because essentially, everyday adds up to a lifetime so you need to be conscious and awake everyday you can.

Natalie:

Yeah absolutely. So you've traveled the world - so tell me some of the most interesting experiences that you had that were contributing to the book.

Emma:

Oh, I had all sorts. I did Ayahuasca. I had incredible acupuncture experiences. I've had Reiki crystal healing. I'm actually and I need to be careful how I say it - the other day I was saying I was a crystal junky and they could definitely be misinterpreted. I’m a gemstone junky, I just adore crystals, and I was speaking with some medical professionals and they personally they love them as decor but they were questioning their ability to heal or to promote a shift in energy. And I said you know what, in my opinion I think placebo or not, it makes you feel better, it makes you live your life better. Who cares? Who actually cares? That’s proof enough for me. And I think having a conversation and opening up to all sorts of things that you can explore in your life, without any judgment, without the right or wrong - it's so empowering, particularly for our next generation. You know when you think of growing up with Google, and with wisdom in your fingertips, you know, they're able to cut and paste and build their own thoughts and opinions on everything in life and spirituality is no different for them. So for me, being able to report a service and offer a book like “The Soul Searcher’s Handbook”, tools for them to be able to explore and take what they like and care for the rest, is just such an honor because for me it's not about – yeah, the goal was to be a best-seller but it wasn't to be “a best-seller!”. You know, it was to be able to get as many books in as many hands as possible and it’s been such a cool journey. And I'm so glad I didn't take that first rejection email and wipe my hands of it you know, 300 later and it was all worth it.

Natalie:

I know! How did you keep going?! 300 rejections!

Emma:

If I'm being honest, there were definitely times where my chakra wheels came off. I had two modes about it: it was I’m going to stay or I’m going to cut you. Yeah, I’m a young female, I’m hormonal. I have mood swings, I’m a normal person. Yeah, I remembering having a glass of wine and a block of chocolate and feeling really sorry for myself. But yeah, I always actually come back to, for me, it was coming back to the dream board, the vision board, really being able to plug into, who my readers were and why I was doing it and how I was going to get it to them and it was all more about focusing on the why and how, than getting results. And for me, I think the journey, this is why I wanted to share the journey to my inspiration with you because it's so easy to share my inspiration but the journey is what's going to help so many other people that are probably sitting there with the glass of wine and block of chocolate, watching this video. I don’t know.

Natalie:

That's the thing, like I don't know if you know much about our story, but it’s the same thing we did, we’d come over here to the US, we did our launch and everything went wrong, you know, the email delivery system shut us down, they were closed down for maintenance in the morning, we had the account frozen, we had 3,000 customers support emails on the first day. It was just insane, like everything in our reality was screaming this is not going to work, but you're right - when you can be very clear about where it is that you want to be and what service you are being and who you're helping, it just seems to, it takes you from that “Oh my god, the wheels are falling off!” to “Ok, how do I get around this? Because value is not an option and there's always more than one solution to every challenge.” So, tell us what you're working on now.

Emma:

So I'm so lucky to be working with this amazing publishing group called Enliven Books, they’re a division of Simon & Schuster. And I’m working on my next book called “The Evolution of Goddess”. It’s so cool, it's going to be a rage that is more about like your badass girl rage, like here’s all our girl sisters of our time and how they can empower you. But it hasn't been that book at all. It’s turned into more like your journey, your personal spiritual history and you work out your dots essentially, and your blueprint to your spiritual evolution. And so we explore your ancestors to your archetype, to your acme. And I love it! Like I'm learning so much and that's when I get excited, I think, this is blowing my mind and then hopefully, it blows someone else’s. So that's really exciting. It's a lot of work and again you know, I still have those moments when I’m like “Why am I doing this?” But I know it’s all worthwhile, when you get to hold that book in your hands or get that email from someone that says “Wow! This has been such a huge help for me.” I'm so privileged, like I constantly pinch myself, like all the hard work’s paid off and that essentially, I have to be grateful for the fact that I didn’t give up and that I wanted to live and inspire life.

Natalie:

Yeah, so is there anything that's happened in your life that you think has conditioned you to being this type of person? Like are you special or do you find it was just things that you did that were able to help you keep moving forward?

Emma:

I think if you ask the people that are close to me if I'm special, they’ll say the weird kind of special. I’m definitely quirky!

Natalie:

You know, you’re from New Zealand, I’m from Australia, you know, you can’t be too special over there!

Emma:

Yeah, I’m used to that. Yeah, I think I am an Aries, so I’m resilient and I'm a millennial so I'm stubborn and I hate being told what to do and I think I stand for, every other reader behind me or with me alongside more importantly, and that is coming through, that doesn't like being told what to do, how to live, how to be, what to believe in. And you know, whose rules, who are you reporting to besides yourself? And I think for me, it's about understanding that you are the CEO of you.com. You take responsibility for yourself - you run yourself. And I think one of the biggest things for me, particularly when I was getting knocked down and being my own worst enemy, because self-talk was amazing at some points, I was having that light counsel around me, people that motivated me and lifted me up, so when you think of the CEO, they appoint the right people for the job, so I would appoint the cheerleader, the hard coach; the person who was going to straight talk with me even if I didn't want to hear it. I had the logical accountant type, I had  the counselor, the therapist, and all these people that I would go to in life when I needed to get the expertise on me.com, which is essentially my purpose, my drive, my goal, my life, my inspiration and so I think you know it’s easy for us to have friends like that, but do you have them for your purpose or for your goals?

Natalie:

Yeah it's actually important, I mean, the support that we have around us is everything. And you're right, I mean, we have different types of support. Now there's the support, you've got your friends, but then if you have the right people that can give you the right advice which is what got us through that launch, we were a part of a mastermind group and so every time something hit the fan, we had the right people to be able to step in and give us the support that we needed, so you know, we don't do anything on our own, we always look at that. So, I know you have mindbodygreen and you have a huge following, can you share any kind of stories of people that you've interacted with that you see that the message that you have, the information that you're sharing, has really helped to shape, or to change their lives for them?

Emma

Yeah, actually, I’ve been lucky enough to connect with a lot of people through the mindbodygreen platform and was lucky enough to actually, because I write spirituality without the sandals and candles woo-woo, it was interesting to them - kind of create holistic, new-age, spiritual tools that were a bit more mainstream and so that has been transformative for me. Being able to get emails from people, “I started reading the article because I thought it was completely batshit crazy, and now I'm totally going to go and explore Feng Shuing my house” or “run with everybody getting a good night’s sleep” or crystals and Feng Shui, aromatherapy, meditation to help me lose a lot of my stress in my life and I think that's okay. I think one of the most important things I want to offer people is there’s no right or wrong when it comes to beliefs, and yes we all have descriptions, we’ve all been brought up raised in different ways, we all have different religions, parents – my goodness parents! - you know culture and conditioning to believe a certain thing, or to believe right or wrong, even the media might tell us that these people believe in this and they're crazy. You know, I think being able to actually absorb everything we need and then make our own decisions on what's right or wrong for us. Most importantly, we change our mind and I for one change my mind and say wow I was wrong about that. I think that's a really good sign of an evolving, a growing person, being, consciousness. So yeah, don't be afraid to open up into change. I think that's the biggest thing I learned and I'm still learning. Gosh! I don't know if I’ve even mastered that.

Natalie:

Well that’s the thing! Personal development and this natural curiosity is a lifelong process you know. It's a lifelong endeavor and you're right that we all have our programming from our parents, but remember, our parents had parents too and then they had parents as well. So you know, you can see where we all get it from. So Emma, like if people want to connect with you, get their hands on the book, where can we send them to do that?

Emma:

Yeah, so you can either check me out on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter (emmamildon) or you can come visit me on my website emmamildon.com. I answer all my emails personally so be patient with me, it might take few days. But I'm literally behind all my social platforms and all my emails, so if you are wanting to connect. I’m there and I look forward to chatting with you.

Natalie:

Awesome! And guys, remember if you're watching this online, the banner to the side or on the app on the banner underneath, it will take you straight through to Emma's website or me. So thanks again for joining me, Emma! It has been such a pleasure talking to you.

Emma:

Thank you so much. I mean, I always enjoy our chats lately.

Natalie:

I know, it's great. So guys again, remember if you're watching this on Youtube, don't forget to take that 30 second quiz so we can figure out what's blocking you from success. And leave your email so we can send you The Manifesting with the Masters video e-course if you're watching online, mindmovies.com. So until next time, remember to live large, choose courageously and love without limits. We’ll see you soon!