Welcome to the Radiant Soul Sisters Podcast!
Episode #5
Today my guest is Marty Clemons, Founder, The Good and True.
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If you want to read the transcript, check it out below:
Susan
I am so excited to be here with my friend Marty Clemons. Marty and I have met through the southeast hemp Association, but we’ve gotten to know each other a little better through that work. And Marty, I’m just wondering for that woman that needs to hear from you, what is the biggest piece of advice that you would give in creating work life, harmony, and the life you love?
Marty
Well, thank you, Susan, for having me. And I would say you know that you can have the life of your dreams. And you can have it all, but you can’t have it all at once. And the importance of really taking time and slowing down and getting out of the busy culture, to figure out what it is that you actually want to create in your life. And do it consciously, as opposed to just, you know, rushing and being in the dominant culture of rushing and stress. Take time out of that so that you can see clearly what you want to create and then prioritize those things and let go of all the other stuff that’s just a distraction.
Susan
I love that Marty and a lot of great truth in that golden nugget. Thank you. Thank you for your time today. I am so excited to have with us on this episode, my friend and radiant soul sister, Marty Clemens. I met Marty through the southeast hemp Association and have treasured getting to know her beautiful soul. She has done some amazing work as an attorney. However, her light really shines in her work through her yoga community and as an entrepreneur, Marty, I am so glad you’re here today.
Marty
Thank you for having me, Susan. I appreciate it.
Susan
Yeah, tell me a little bit more about yourself.
Marty
Well, as you alluded to, I did start my career in Ohio. I’m sorry. That would be my life. I was born in Ohio. And went to college in Arizona and law school in LA. And my first job was in Chicago as an attorney. And so, my first career was as a lawyer. And I would say that first career I did everything that I thought I was supposed to do. Every kind of expectation, my family had a high expectation for education, my culture of achieving. And so that was my first career as a lawyer, and then, you know, as my career as a lawyer was winding down, and I got married and I was going to be having kids. I really did take that pause and say what do I really want to do next. And what my mind went to at the time was yoga, because I had a really positive experience with yoga when I was 17 years old. In Ohio, I was doing yoga at a time when it was not popular. I was in fact the only student in the class of this small town in Ohio doing yoga. And my my parents were paying for it. And I would say Oh, we did candle gazing today, or whatever we did. And my parents literally thought I was in a cult, but they must have saw that it was some positive effect on me because they kept paying for it, and for me to go to yoga and I had a really great yoga teacher who taught me even though it was the only student. She was kind of trapped in this small town just like I was she was married to somebody from there. And you know, I did feel trapped. I felt it growing up in a small town. I felt very limited. I was very curious. And there wasn’t a lot of diversity. There wasn’t a lot of diversity in any way of thoughts, of people, of anything. So, I went as far away for college as I could go. And you know I think I did go the farthest from anyone in my high school. And but you know, yoga was always a theme through my life, but it wasn’t front and center again until I left my career as a lawyer and I was 36 years old. I was pregnant with my first daughter. And I started a yoga teacher training, pregnant. And so it was a two year training and I was five months pregnant when I started and I was two weeks pregnant with my second daughter when I ended. I gravitated towards teaching a lot of prenatal and mom and baby kind of yoga at different studios. And I was working part time as a lawyer from home and part time as a yoga teacher. Until about two 2009, I transitioned to full time yoga and opened a yoga studio in Chicago.
Susan
I love that. You know, I love the thought of how yoga really got into your world when you were a teenager. Right? And that, yeah, your parents thought you were in that “cult”, right? They continued to support you, because obviously, they could see something and what a great testament to your parents. Because I can tell you, my dad wouldn’t have paid for it. That goes back to growing up and doing what we think we’re supposed to do. Right? Right. But anyway, so Marty throughout the years, you know, you’ve been a lawyer. But I know now you’re an entrepreneur, you’ve been working in the hemp space, which is challenging many times in itself, right? So, what is one of the biggest lessons you’ve learned about being yourself and being an entrepreneur?
Marty
Yeah, I think that’s the challenge is, when you’re in business, there’s always that constant lore to do something that’s maybe out of your integrity or out of your authenticity, because you feel like you need to at that point in your company’s development, right. So you might, you know, lose your authenticity or your integrity, I think. So I do think it’s a struggle to be an entrepreneur and be authentic, when, you know, the system that you’re operating in, doesn’t necessarily reward that.
Susan
Oh, my goodness, could we have a long conversation? Especially on the hemp side of the world, you know, and I can tell you for, for me personally as leading Huntsboro Hemp, you know, when delta eight came around, you know, that was a really big challenge. And I do not carry any delta eight products, I do not make delta eight products. And, you know, people constantly are telling me, Well, do you know how much money you could make if you would get into delta eight? Well, yes, I’m very aware of that. But it’s not me. And it’s not being true to myself. And I love that, you know, I love that you remind us as an entrepreneur to really stay true to yourself. So, um, you know, you’ve had high power careers, and you’ve had yoga in your life to help keep you grounded. So what do you think, is that key to having work life harmony?
Marty
Well, I think it’s important to understand that it’s not something that we, we get to, and it ends, right. Like, once something happens, then I’ll have that work life balance, right. It’s a constant rebalancing every day that we get up. And I think it’s good to have long term goals, but good to have short term goals. And just really, really getting an understanding the importance of self-care, because, you know, you can’t be in balance and you can’t be showing up as an entrepreneur or a mom or a wife or whatever, sister, whatever roles you’re playing. If you’re depleted, and, you know, it’s so easy in this fast paced, busy world, it’s just we’re swimming in stress, and we don’t even realize it all the time. To, neglect self-care, and it needs to be in your phone, like your meetings need to be in your phone.
Susan
I agree. And I think they’re I use the word balance. But more often, what I really talk about is harmony. You know, creating the symphony in your life. And sometimes you need to be playing a different instrument, you know, you might need to be playing the work instrument or you might need playing the taking care of adult children instrument or aging appearance. And that you just acknowledge it and you let it create this beautiful symphony of life. Right? And it’s ongoing and ever changing. You’re never, never supposed to stay in one measure forever right.
Marty
It’s that flexibility. I think, you know, my yoga studio in Chicago was called bend. And our tagline was bend your body bend your mind. Because the real benefit of yoga is that flexibility and being able to pivot and keeping an open mind. The less, you know structured framework, we have, expectations of how something is supposed to go, the better when we are just trying to be in the present moment and going with the flow, we block the flow by, you know, saying something’s got to show up this way, it’s got to show up. Once we get locked in, we lose other opportunities, because we’ve blocked them out, right? And so, someone once told me, you, you can’t receive with a tight fist, right? You have to let go and have an open fist to receive an open mind, open body. I think being in flow, but we are co-creators. So, I think sometimes people are in flow and are like, Well, I’m just going with the flow and whatever happens, happens. But we have power in that flow. We’re co-creators with it. So, I think it’s, it’s equally important to know where you want to go.
Susan
Absolutely. Absolutely. So, tell me what is one thing you do every day for your radiant soul to shine?
Marty
Well, for me, you know, yoga really took me down this path of I did Hatha Yoga first and then I did Kundalini Yoga, I was always very tuned to energy and moving energy, I was looking for ways to move energy quicker, I became a Reiki Master, Kundalini Yoga really opened me up to, to energy and feeling energy and that kind of led me down this path of really exploring that intersection of science and spirituality, and the role the brain plays in our experience of life and who we are. And so the current thing that I’ve done and I have done this, since when I first became a facilitator of this work in 2014, it’s called higher brain living, and source code meditation and the nine summons of transformation. So what it is, is, it’s a brain first meditation. So, I’m first engaging the part of my brain that is responsible for your executive functioning, it’s primarily your prefrontal cortex in the center of your forehead, and it roughly correlates to your third eye. So prepping the brain first, before I introduce my meditation, makes the meditation more effective. So that’s the primary path I’ve been on since 2014.
Susan
Interesting, I am gonna have to learn more about that. And I love the thought of anything that has to do with the frontal cortex, you know, or the brain in general, because you know, I believe that the better care we take of our brain, whatever that is, or whatever that looks like, the healthier we’re going to live throughout life.
Marty
Absolutely. You know, for me, I wasn’t paying attention. I know I have a brain and I wasn’t really paying attention. And right before I started the training for this, this work, I fell and slipped on some ice in Chicago when I was walking my dog. And I got a concussion. And it was the first time I ever had a concussion or any kind of, you know, brain injury. And I couldn’t read, I couldn’t be my computer. You know, it was a mild concussion, but the effects of just that little mild concussion on my life. I’m just like, wow. And so I believe it was like a little nudge from the universe to say, pay attention to that thing that’s in your head.
Susan
Yes, yes. Yes, it is. Oh, my goodness, I am so enjoying this conversation, and I hope that our listeners are enjoying as well. And if they are interested in learning more about living your life on purpose, or having work life harmony, be sure to connect with me, Susan at SusanCrewsCo on all of my socials, and reach out for time to chat if you’d like to get to know me better. Marty, how can our listeners find you?
Marty
Well, my company is called The Good and True. Yes, and it’s a hemp protein powder superfoods company. And I’m on LinkedIn as well as Marty Clemons. Clemons because a lot of people spell it with the two M’s because there’s a town here right.
Susan
I’ll have it in our in our show notes too. So our listeners can find you.
Marty
Yeah, and I’m on Facebook, I’m easy to find.
Susan
And I’m super excited because my protein shakes should be here any minute. So I can sample those and share this with the world as well. Marty, thank you for your time today. But before we go, I have one last question. For that woman who is listening, what would be your biggest piece of advice or something that you would like to share with her today about living in this work life harmony or creating the life you love?
Marty
Well, you know, I would say, understand that the culture is spinning around with stress, and that you need go take a you know, like a silent retreat or go, you know, go somewhere, Where you can actually get out of it for a while and think clearly. And journal, you know, I follow integral theory, which is Ken Wilber’s work. And he talks about, you can’t boil a life down into any smaller parts than your mind, your body, your relationships and your environment. So thinking about what kind of a mind you want, and what you would have to do differently to get it and what kind of a body do you want and what you would have to do differently to get it, and relationships, you know, looking at your work, your colleagues, your family dynamics, they’re all dynamic, so we’re all participating in it. And we can show up differently. And we have to show up differently if we want to shift any of those dimensions and your environment includes, you know, are you living in a place that feeds your soul? Are you living in a place that drains your soul?
Susan
Right, right. And I know you told me you’ve just moved somewhere that I imagine is really feeding your soul?
Marty
Yes, I did. And honestly, I needed to see the mountains every day. And every morning, I say good morning to the mountains. I’m so grateful to be able to see the mountains. And yeah, I think our soul, I observed that some people already, you know, I’m sure there’s lots of different variations of it. But people tend to be ocean people or mountain people is what I’ve kind of, you know, gathered the pattern, and I’m a mountain person. So I’m in the mountains now. And I’ve wanted to be here. And so yeah, you got to pay attention to where your soul wants to be. And in our world now, you know, we get stuck places, you know, because of XY and Z. But having that goal of going to your soul home. It’s really important, we don’t we don’t really understand how having a beautiful environment that feeds your particular soul is important.
Susan
So, so important. Well, thank you so much, Marty for joining me today. What a great conversation, you make my soul shine or just feel good in our conversations. I really appreciate that. I hope our listeners have enjoyed this episode of the radiant soul sisters in so many thanks to Marty Clemons for being here today. Join us next time when I’ll shine the light on another radiant soul sister on her path to work life harmony and creating a life that she loves. Till then. I’m your host Susan crews, and you can find all of our episodes, resources, community and much more. At my website, SusanCrewsCo.com
