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Meet Marlene Elizabeth Lyall of MONEYWINGS™ in Greater Los Angeles Area

Today we’d like to introduce you to Marlene Elizabeth Lyall.

Marlene Elizabeth, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
Despite two college degrees and everything going for me, I struggled for years in despair, feeling stuck and doomed to painful financial hardship. I often felt alone in a crowd and experienced more than a few dark nights of self-doubt, confusion, deep frustration and fear. By nature, I’m a very positive person with deep faith. I couldn’t understand my painful struggles around money. I wrestled with this great divide between practical matters and following my heart to make a difference. I deeply respect money, but I’m not motivated for the sake of cash alone. At the end of the day, love not money, compels me to act.

I managed to survive and “get by”. Until I became a Mom, and merely scraping by was no longer an option. When my daughter was born, I felt deeply committed to raising her as a “money-smart” girl and to be a work-from-home Mom. The problem was I had no idea how to make this “fairytale” financial dream come true. I’d never been taught about money as a child, just as my parents hadn’t been taught by their family. Whatever money habits I learned came from pure observation. Later, those habits simply became part of me without much thought – some positive, but mostly unhealthy and self-defeating.

Yet, love for my daughter fueled me with courage to dive into the waters of financial literacy, follow my heart into entrepreneurship, and learn all I could about building wealth.

With relief, I learned that personal finance is not rocket science. The road to wealth consists of “crazy simple” actions built on making well-informed choices. Yet learning the “nuts and bolts” of finance alone did not help me change my relationship to money as I expected it would.

It wasn’t until I realized that a healthy relationship with money starts with a healthy money-mindset that things finally began changing for me. Learning and practicing responsible money management skills is essential. Yet, what drives 80% of our financial choices is our attitude and beliefs about money.

My relationship to money began shifting the moment I realized that my money belief that you can’t be ”spiritual” and “financially successful” was utterly false. My fears significantly decreased even further as I started re-imagining money and power being like water: ordinary, extraordinary and essential to life on earth.

That shift in my money mindset, coupled with reimagining power, and learning how to improve my money management skills, set me free to rewrite my money story. It empowered me to be true to myself in my desire to be spiritual and wealthy, not for the sake of money alone but to positively and profoundly impact the lives of those around me. The real secret is that learning about money is never just about money. Finance, at the core, is a spiritual matter. Uncovering this hidden gem transformed my life.

It took a long time working on my own to put the pieces of the puzzle together and find solutions for my money challenges. Looking back, my determination to heal my money relationship led me on a deeply meaningful, inner-money game expedition, more so than a practical numbers game — nothing at all like I imagined or expected!

I’ve always been an entrepreneur at heart. And entrepreneurs are leaders. Visionary servant leaders. With the help of our local women’s business center, I completed an entrepreneurial training program that helped me start my business, MONEYWINGS™ to provide money coaching services for women entrepreneurs like me.

My passion for personal finance education led me into partnership with Money Smart Week ®2015 to present a free money workshop in Montclair, CA. Using ZOOM online meeting technology, I widened the opportunity and enabled a group of participants to join us from Northern California, the East Coast and Paris.

During Money Smart Week® 2016, with the exciting collaboration of the Inland Empire Women’s Business Center, my one event grew into a week-long series with three financial workshop speakers presenting seven free money workshops in 5 different local cities.

My mission to help women reconnect with their extraordinary feminine power to prosper from the inside out continued to unfold. On October 23, 2016, I joined eight colleagues on the beautiful island of Maui at Sugar Beach for a public reading of letters we’d written to our dear amazing daughters. On September 15, 2017, the official, full version of my letter was published as a chapter in the #1 bestseller, Bloom Where You Are Planted and SHINE! My letter and chapter would become the seed for my first book MONEYWINGS™ published the following year in 2018 and was featured in several outlets including MOMpreneur.buzz and Thrive Global. My book also sparked the launch of my year-long “Let’s Get Tender” podcast series that aired globally on the RHG TV Network to further encourage and support other woman to re-write their money stories.

In 2016, I certified as a Brain Personality Specialist through Your Best Mind Certification Program, rounding out my decades of experience as a spiritual teacher with the latest in neuroscience research for my money-mindset coaching practice. I fell in love with the brain-science behind our personality, for the power it has to truly empower my clients with confidence in their money relationship. Ultimately, I learned it’s not about lasting riches, but who you become along the way that lasts forever.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
My biggest challenge is that as a strong, sometimes overly-independent woman, I was never comfortable reaching out for help. It always seemed easier to grind my way through challenges. I didn’t realize that this limiting mindset actually made life much harder as a single Mamapreneur, not easier at all. Starting my own business required me to shift into a new mindset that was unfamiliar and therefore uncomfortable, but key for my success. I learned it’s not only okay to reach out for support, but a team is essential for the big dreams, the big results, the big love I wish to pour into the world — whether I own a business or not. Plus, it’s way more fun… and fun is allowed 😉

MONEYWINGS™ – what should we know? What do you do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
As a Certified Money Coach®, Author and Mamapreneur, I specialize in helping creative women entrepreneurs (coaches/consultants, authors/speakers and visionary leaders rewrite their money story so they can stop under-earning and start creating the income and impact they dream about… because finances, at the core, are a spiritual matter. I teach “financial spirituality” online, which is a mind-body-soul approach to money, through private 1:1 money coaching; a new opportunity called, The Moneywings™ Retreat Experience for private and public groups; public speaking events; and free monthly Moneywings™ ZOOM Coffee Chats.

My students and clients understand that this is not a “get rich-quick”, gimmicky, short-cut-to-riches path, but an authentic, creative, spiritual and feminine approach to finally become genuinely empowered in your relationship to money as a woman entrepreneur.

From the moment I discovered the ground-breaking world of online female entrepreneurship in 2015, I knew in my heart it was the place for me. Thanks to the internet and many useful tools, it’s now possible for women around the world, especially those with children, to start businesses and earn money from home. Whether providing a little extra income for the family or seeking to earn a full-time income, online entrepreneurship is one of the most exciting places where women are experiencing amazing opportunities to create wealth, freedom and impact doing what they love more than ever before. Understanding that money is the lifeblood of a business, I’m so proud to be part of this movement to help women unfold their money wings for their business dreams.

What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
The proudest moment of my career so far was publishing my book MONEYWINGS™: Unfolding Your Financial Potential One Brave Feather At A Time, inspired by my daughter, which was officially launched on her birthday in 2018, and became a #1 International Bestseller in the U.S. and Australia. Giving birth to my daughter after two grueling days of labor was easier for me than giving birth to my life-long dream of becoming an author. I am deeply grateful to all those who were the wind beneath my wings for my dream to take flight. In my book, I share a fresh perspective for seeing money differently and powerful strategies, tools and exercises for financial self-care. My hope is that readers walk away with a renewed money mindset and know they are not alone in their financial challenges. My hope is that this book will inspire women to seek a safe place to talk, learn and grow moneywings™ so they can own their moment.

To learn more about Marlene’s brand new Moneywings™ Retreat Experience for creative, spiritual women entrepreneurs, visit www.growmoneywings.com.  VoyageLA readers who contact Marlene directly at marlene@marleneelizabeth.com no later than Dec. 20, 2020 to enroll, receive an exclusive bonus-savings registration rate of only $97.00 (reg. $597.00) *** limited availability, only 12 spots available***

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1 Comment

  1. Mari Vazquez

    November 4, 2020 at 16:04

    Wonderful article! So much depth and inspiration. Marlene is brilliant. I will encourage family, friends and co-workers to read “Money Wings” as a must read!

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