Navigating the Entrepreneurial Seas: Rita Owens on Overcoming Debt and Cultivating Resilience

Embark on a transformative journey with financial expert Rita Owens as she candidly shares her pivot from the safety of corporate finance to the exhilarating challenges of entrepreneurship. Her tale is a vivid mosaic of trials and triumphs, revealing the harsh realities of bootstrapping a startup and the pitfalls of personal debt. Rita's revival story isn't just about financial acumen; it's a testament to the resilience required to empower oneself and others through the maze of business growth.

Unlock the secrets to entrepreneurial success with Rita's insights into leveraging other people's money (OPM) while preserving your company's equity. Our conversation peels back the layers of what it takes to cultivate a mindset of steel, set crystal-clear goals, and maintain the discipline essential for managing credit and securing funding. Whether you dream of leaving a legacy, savoring freedom, or scaling your business, these nuggets of wisdom are golden for anyone striving to etch their name in the entrepreneurial hall of fame.

Discover the power of dreaming with purpose and hear why regret is the one companion you don't want on your entrepreneurial voyage. I delve into the practice of journaling with gratitude for my future self, a concept that intertwines time and energy with our own aspirations. Rita chimes in with her sage advice on personal growth and the pivotal role of self-belief. Plus, she offers a glimpse into the resources available for coaching and sidestepping scams. Stay tuned for my upcoming feature on Rita's podcast 'Hoodwinked: Surviving the Scam,' where we'll continue unraveling the intricate dance of manifesting dreams and learning from life's hurdles.

How to contact Rita Owens

https://www.ritaeowens.com/

Her podcast is Hoodwinked: Surviving the Scam

Her Instragram is @IMRITAOWENS

Transcript

Greg Kuhn: 0:12

Welcome to another scintillating episode of Manifest the Big Stuff. I'm Greg Kuhn, your manifesting coach and expert in turning up your manifesting power. I'm really excited today because I've got a great guest that I've been looking forward to having on for a conversation. Her name is Rita Owens and, rita, can you say hello to folks?

Rita Owens: 0:41

Hello everybody. Thank you so much, Greg, for having me on the podcast. I'm really excited as well.

Greg Kuhn: 0:48

Well, it is great to have you, rita. I want to let folks know that Rita is a leading financial expert. She has over 15 years of experience in the industry. She specializes in teaching female entrepreneurs especially how to start, how to grow and, just as importantly, how to scale their business. Sometimes we entrepreneurs overlook that, especially in the beginning, and I'm sure Rita can attest to that in her experience.

Greg Kuhn: 1:30

Rita utilizes her signature fund-her-ready formula and, of course, we want to ask her a bit about that as well. She offers proven growth strategies used by Fortune 500 companies and these strategies enable her clients to build very strong business portfolios to access investor funding at six-figure levels without having to give away a percentage of their company. I've watched enough Shark Tank episodes to know how important that is. She is a self-described serial entrepreneur. She's a motivational speaker and a real estate investor who is passionate about educating, empowering and encouraging entrepreneurs to leverage OPM other people's money the best money to spend and to use other people's money to launch, grow and scale their businesses quickly Is that, rita? Is that a fair introduction to you and where you are today?

Rita Owens: 3:00

That was an incredible introduction. Thank you so much. Absolutely yes, right on point.

Greg Kuhn: 3:08

Well, Rita, I am very curious. I've done a bit of homework about you, as I like to do before I talk to interesting people and folks my audience. They love to know the person behind the story. Could you tell us a little bit about the pertinent parts of your life, especially those that contributed to where you are right now, in your business life and your personal life?

Rita Owens: 3:43

Absolutely so. As you mentioned, I am a self-proclaimed serial entrepreneur and that actually stands back several years. I worked in corporate. I have over 15 years' worth of experience in the financial industry, but when I first started out as an entrepreneur, I started out using my own money. So I worked a full nine to five sometimes nine to like seven job and I would come home and I would work on my business, which at the time was a beauty tech company. So I would go to work with my nine to five, come home, work diligently on my beauty tech company, because I wanted to eventually go into that full time.

Rita Owens: 4:27

Now, as I mentioned, I used my own funds. So the money that I made from my nine to five, I would take that and I would reinvest that into my business. At the time, I was only familiar with things like you mentioned Shark Tank and pitching to VC, venture capitalist raising funds through crowdfunding as well and I had no knowledge of OPM, other people's money, the bank's money and how I could access that without giving up a percentage of my company. And so I spent a lot of time on the road pitching my tech company to venture capitalists who would then say in order to get this money, you're going to have to give me a percentage of your company and so as you're pitching and you're having more conversations like that, you really have to think about whether or not that's going to be beneficial to your company. So for myself, I continue to just invest my own personal funds into my company until I no longer had a company. Now, when you're looking to build a company, to scale your company, especially a tech company, it takes cash, it takes a lot of money and I ran out of money and once that happened, I had to shut my doors down.

Rita Owens: 5:41

Now, because I use my own personal funds, including personal credit cards, I was left with over $25,000 worth of personal credit debt. That was specifically for my company and at that time, working my nine to five, I couldn't afford to maintain my household, which was a brand new mom, so I had a newborn and then also be able to pay the debts that I had accumulated for my company, so I ended up having to go into foreclosure for my house. I ended up in credit card debt. My 800 credit score went down to like a 423. I couldn't get credit anywhere and I was just at the really the lowest point of my life where I felt like I'd lost my home. I lost my credit standing and I had all of this debt. I had companies wanting to sue me for credit card debt and I felt really, really defeated.

Rita Owens: 6:41

After that point in time, it took some time for me to pull myself up by my bootstraps and start over again, but I knew that I was an entrepreneur at heart.

Rita Owens: 6:51

So this time around, I decided like figure out how these other companies do it right, because they can't all just be relying on venture capitalist money in order to fund their businesses. And that is how I got into business funding and business credit, learning how to utilize and leverage other people's money in order to build my business. Once I discovered that I was able to accumulate over six figures worth of funding for my business in order to move my business forward, I started teaching others how to do it. I raised my credit score from a 423 to a 750 in only three months, and it's just been up from there. But I wouldn't be in this position if I didn't have those struggles, and that's another reason why I'm so excited to chat with you about manifestation, because a lot of that came into play as well getting out of that depression and the negative thoughts about entrepreneurship and really honing in on what I want my future to look like and what my goals were.

Greg Kuhn: 7:58

You, rita. You is it fair to say that you took charge of your inner world at that time. Was that a big part of the journey out, if you will?

Rita Owens: 8:15

Absolutely, absolutely. I had to make a decision. I had a newborn baby. My husband worked full time. I was working full time, but I actually was transitioning out of working full time to stay at home with my baby, and so I knew that I had to do something.

Greg Kuhn: 8:33

So that begs the question Tell us you know you? Obviously you're on manifest, the big stuff. And I like to say, rita, that manifesting, well, certainly it's becoming much more mainstream. I hear it talked about quite often. As a matter of fact, one of my favorite podcasts, mel Robbins, had a podcast just a couple of months ago about manifesting. It's no longer relegated to the woo-woo conversations. It's not even necessarily esoteric at all. In fact, manifesting is simply what we do, right, we're all manifesting machines. We're all manifesting a unique version of life, of this, in every moment of our lives. You found yourself in a place, as I did at one point, where what you were manifesting was, I mean, grossly displeasing is probably an understatement, is it?

Rita Owens: 9:51

Absolutely. You know, like I mentioned, with depression, when you're already down, you know like I lost my house, my credit score, money, all of the things that could really beat a normal person down. I had to make that decision to move forward and create the reality that I wanted for myself. You know the power of thoughts is so important and how they shape our reality, and I really had to work hard to control my thoughts, you know, so that I could achieve the things that I wanted to achieve in life and not let the setback. You know, hold me back and really look at it. As you know, I took an L, but that L was for learning. Right, I learned what I needed to learn in order to apply that to the future and also be able to relate to others that I work with, because a lot of them come to me as well with similar stories and I can honestly relate.

Greg Kuhn: 10:51

Well, and that's a great segue Tell us some about what your life looks like now. I mean, I know when you were relaying your harrowing past I noticed you had some smiles on your face. So I'm making a pretty educated, a pretty reasonable, educated guess that your current circumstances are much different. And I know you also have devoted yourself to helping to educate not only folks in your role as a financial advisor and counselor. Also, you have a podcast now called Hood Winked. So I'm not trying to stack too many questions on top of each other, but tell us a little bit about what your life is like now and how does Hood Winked play into that. What is Hood Winked?

Rita Owens: 11:51

Okay, yes, so life is good. Life is good. Now it's so again. It's so incredible how the power of thoughts can really like help to shape your reality. Never in a million years would I have thought that I would have a successful six-figure business helping others to be able to secure funding for their businesses. So I have a thriving business now. The home that I lost into foreclosure has been restored to me like 10-fold. I'm a real estate investor, so now I have a real estate portfolio, a seven-figure real estate portfolio. I enjoy what I do. I'm not in tech anymore, but I work as a consultant, so that's really amazing and I now have the freedom to do what I love, which is helping people, and also just the flexibility to spend with my children, which I have four of, which is amazing, and it's something that I would not have been able to do if I didn't have that situation happen many years ago With my podcast Hood Winked.

Rita Owens: 12:56

That is something that was something that I worked on creating. It took maybe about a year for me to really put the concept out there, and Hood Winked stemmed from me as an entrepreneur going through several circumstances where I was scammed, where I took my hard-earned money and I trusted in another business owner and in turn, they ended up scamming me. But it goes a little bit deeper than that. It goes as far as business owners who are really good at scamming, but they start to process a lot earlier. Right, they use things like building your trust in order to get you to invest in their businesses and really leaving you feeling hoodwinked.

Rita Owens: 13:40

The name Hood Winked actually came from one of my children's favorite movies, which is called Hood Winked. It's a really fun cartoon and it's about these animals that trick each other. But I thought it was pretty a really good name for the podcast because in those circumstances it really left me feeling like where did this come from? Why am I somebody that was a target of a scam? I'm a nice person. These people seem like nice people as well. But I wanted to focus the podcast Hood Winked not just on being scammed, but how you can thrive beyond the scam, what lessons you can learn from that, so that you can avoid making those same mistakes, understanding that the job of a scammer is to trick you, so that if you are ever scammed, it's not your fault necessarily, because that is their job and they're really good at it. So I share stories of other entrepreneurs who have been in the same situation as myself and ways that they were able to overcome those situations and really just thrive beyond the scam.

Greg Kuhn: 14:50

That's an important point of interest, I would venture to guess. Certainly in my experience, folks who are looking to turn up their manifesting power A usually aren't really coming from a place of being completely broken, if you will. Typically, I'm running into and working with people who are successful. They want to become more successful and certainly when it comes to manifesting, no matter how good we get at manifesting those parts of our life that are most important to us, as we desire, we're going to continue to experience stub toes, disappointments, lack of fulfillment right, I mean, there's really no. In my experience, there's really no way around how important our finances are to our life. Are they more important than our health and our fitness? Are they more important than love and relationships? And no, they're not.

Greg Kuhn: 16:12

But I like to operate with what I call a I've coined, I like to call it a Mount Rushmore approach to manifesting my life, and what I mean by that is I like to identify like, for example, in my business. I like to have at least four strong signifiers of success that I'm going to use to evaluate how well I'm manifesting my business, and money is one of those four, and my commitment is to this Mount Rushmore, which would include opportunities to be a value, high leverage opportunities to be a value reviews and, you know, public acclaim for what I'm doing is another one and then partnerships with people that are empowered to empower me and vice versa. So, of those four Mount Rushmores, if you will, of my business, my commitment is that I won't minimize any of them nor will I overemphasize any of them.

Greg Kuhn: 17:31

So are you, rita? You sound like, because you obviously have had a lot of financial success and that's exciting, and yet, at the same time, your success in life is more than that, isn't it?

Rita Owens: 17:52

Absolutely, absolutely my success in life, you know, as you mentioned. You know, having money that's one thing, but I also enjoy the people that I meet, I enjoy my family. I enjoy just the thought of knowing that I'm able to help others in the position that I'm in, you know, right now, and whether that's through helping them not to get scammed through my podcast or helping them to create and build a business through my business funding. Those are all things that really bring me joy each day. You know, and those are the most important things. Of course, money helps, right, we all know that money helps, but it's not the most important thing for me, but it does allow me the freedom to be able to do what I need to do.

Greg Kuhn: 18:46

And referencing back to you know some of the motivations behind why someone would want to manifest their life more authoritatively, more closely aligned with their desires. What let's take a hypothetical what would be a good hypothetical for a client coming to you right now? Pretend, well, let's do this if you don't mind. Pretend that that I am your client and, as an entrepreneur or somebody who is, you know, I mean, I don't necessarily have to be an entrepreneur, I would assume, To seek you out. What sorts of things are you going to want to know about me and, and how are you going to, you know, point me in the right directions? What are some of the foundational principles that you use to? You know, to work with people?

Rita Owens: 19:55

That's a great question. So I do work with those who are interested in becoming entrepreneurs or who are already entrepreneurs right, because we're looking to secure funding for their businesses, or, if there's someone who is looking to start a business, helping to educate them on how they can still utilize other people's money in order to start building that business. So one of the things that I look for initially is mindset. That's the most important thing, right? Having that mindset to really be able to push yourself and get things done is really important, because when it comes to things like credit, you have to work hard at that. When it comes to things like business credit and securing funding, you also have to work hard at that. You have to have discipline in order to make sure that you're making the right decisions. You know, with the money that is provided to you that's, you know, given to you you have to make the right choices. So mindset is important. I will say I'll talk to them about their mindset. You know what are their goals. What do you want out of life? Is your goal to be able to create a business so that you can leave a legacy for yourself and for, you know, for your family? Is your goal to create a business so that you can have more freedom, you know, to do the things that you want to do.

Rita Owens: 21:11

I have established business owners who've been in business for a long time and a lot of times they come to me because they want to scale their businesses right. Maybe their business isn't scaling at the rate that they're looking for, so they need more money infused into their businesses so that they can do that. So I start, you know, talking to them about their mindset. What are their goals right and what are they currently doing that's not working for them? And those are the most important things.

Rita Owens: 21:39

And then, of course, we look at, you know, the things that are more numbers oriented, like what's your current credit score? You know, do you have a business credit score? Things like that. How much money do you have in your bank account? What does your business look like? What are you selling? All of those things. But the mindset is the most important thing, because, no matter where they are right now in their businesses, I know that I can take them to the next level and help them to achieve the goals that they have set for themselves. But they have to have, you know, that in mind and they have to be able to dream big. Because if you're a business owner, you don't want to play small right. You don't want your in business to make money okay and then also be able to build a business that's going to be sustainable. So you have to be comfortable with dreaming big and putting those big dreams out there and being able to talk about them.

Greg Kuhn: 22:35

That's. You know what I love, that I am a huge proponent of keeping it simple. First of all, as simple as possible. I like to think of a three pronged approach, and you're speaking to this. Number one I identify the best instruction that I can find, the best directions that I can follow. And then number two I give my very best effort to follow them. And then number three while I'm doing that, I grow my beliefs. I grow. There are many ways to do that and you've been speaking to that, rita. Would you talk to us about those three steps, and especially with some emphasis on growing beliefs and how important that is? You talked about mindset.

Rita Owens: 23:40

Yes. So, as I mentioned, things like mindset that takes time, right that not everybody has a positive mindset. Not everybody has a background where maybe they've seen things that they think are impossible become a reality for someone, right? So in really looking at the mindset and growing your mindset, first you have to make the decision that that's what you're going to do, right, and you also have to make the decision that, no matter what, you're gonna keep practicing and striving in order to create positive thoughts for yourself and understand that anything is possible for you if you work hard at it.

Rita Owens: 24:25

I know for myself, for example, when I started this business, I just thought, okay, well, I'm gonna try again, I'm gonna try again, I'm gonna try to create this business for myself and I hope that it does well, right, that hoping mindset is not a mindset that is going to get you the things that you want to manifest, right, hoping is not gonna do it, but working hard and striving and putting goals and things in place is what helped me to be able to change my mindset and really also just focusing on the little wins, like sometimes entrepreneurs are really hard on themselves because they compare themselves to other entrepreneurs and where they are in their journey, not focusing on the wins that you have in your own journey.

Rita Owens: 25:14

And I believe that those wins are things that can definitely help with the mindset because it allows you to see progress being made. You know what I mean. So when you see progress towards your goals being made, it definitely helps to create those positive thoughts that you have. But even like what I mentioned as far as being scammed, there are those thoughts that are gonna creep in there in your mindset, like maybe the fear of being scammed right, and maybe you're an entrepreneur who is scared of investing your money or trusting another business owner because you fear that you're gonna get scammed. Well, that fear can also attract situations where you become more susceptible to scams. So it's really like paying attention to the little things in your mindset and your thoughts and identifying those things and working towards creating more positivity in your thoughts.

Greg Kuhn: 26:15

Love that, Scientifically speaking, there really is nothing that we need to do to make something else happen, in the sense that cause and effect does not exist outside of this macro world that we manifest and live in and experience. However, it is 100% true that there are sometimes things that we need to do to believe that we can manifest something, and you know I'll to keep this in a. I'll use myself as an example. I am 56 and a half years old. I'm in the best health and fitness, the best shape of my life, and I can point to the regimen that I follow. I drink a gallon of water every day. I get a good night's sleep Most nights. I so good.

Greg Kuhn: 27:27

Yeah, yeah, I'm an avid runner. I eat a healthy diet and I'm gonna make a pretty bold claim here, but it is scientifically valid. Those things that I am doing are actually not what manifests my health and fitness. Those things that I'm doing, however, allow me to believe that I can manifest the health and fitness that I am manifesting. So do you often? Do you find yourself? I'm gonna guess the answer to this is yes. You're working with people on their mindsets, because when they come to you, they come to you with, pretty typically what they inherited as small kids.

Rita Owens: 28:18

Yeah, that's absolutely correct. A lot of the people that I work with, they come to me with no knowledge of what it is that I do, and a lot of times they are shocked at the possibilities of what can be done, even if you have never sold a product or anything in your business, like what you're able to be able to gain from building business credit or if you're in the position to secure business funding as well, how easy it actually is to be able to do. A lot of them remind me of myself before I discovered you know, the power of business credit and funding. You know just. They come to me with a hope and a dream to start a business, and after we work on that mindset, they understand that sky's the limit. As long as you set yourself up in the right way for your business, sky is the limit to what it is that you can achieve, and so that mindset again is really, really important, because for someone like myself, I didn't come from a family where we had business owners.

Rita Owens: 29:27

Everyone worked a nine to five. Everybody either had blue collar jobs or we had a few that had white collar jobs, but for the most part I didn't see someone in the same position as I am, where I'm the boss and I can create this business and jobs for others. And so, as I mentioned before, you know, when you have never seen that happen, you may not even think that that is a possibility for you. And with the clients that I work with, a lot of them come from the same type of background that I do, which is most likely because you know I'm attracting the same. You know types of people that you know are like me, but a lot of them come from those backgrounds where they never believed that they'd be able to achieve the things that are possible for them.

Greg Kuhn: 30:21

So what are some examples, then, of things that you might ask of a client to grow, to grow that mindset, to start to develop ways of seeing the world and interpreting the world. And here we're starting to get into your podcast topic too, because certainly, avoiding being scammed is going to be something dependent on growing my ability to see, perceive and understand what's happening, and that's moldable, isn't it?

Rita Owens: 31:05

Absolutely, absolutely. I think what's important, from a mindset perspective again, is being able to honestly understand what it is that you want out of life. What do you want and what is the why behind what it is that you're doing For people that I see that are more susceptible to being scammed? It's because there's some sort of fear, whether that's a fear of not having enough money right. It's the fear of being scammed, it's the fear of missing out. Those are all things that in me interviewing you know, people who have been on the podcast, and also talking to some of my entrepreneur friends, those two are all at the core of why they were scammed.

Rita Owens: 31:51

And, with my clients, I dare them to dream big. I dare them to write out what it is that they want out of life and what are the things that they want to accomplish, and then make a commitment to work towards those things. You know, one of the things that I mentioned to you before is that sometimes people think their dreams are too big. They don't even want to say them out loud because they feel like this will never happen for me, this. I don't deserve that right, like I don't deserve to have a seven, eight, nine figure business. I'm okay with just, you know, making six figures, right. There's some people who come to me like that and they don't even want to write out those dreams and those goals on paper. And so we work on that mindset because it's really important, because if they don't believe that they can do it, they're not going to accomplish it. The money that I'm able to help them secure to build their business most likely will be blown If they don't have any goals in mind.

Rita Owens: 32:48

I've seen entrepreneurs get six figure or six figure funding and then that money is gone in three to four months and they don't know what happened to it.

Rita Owens: 32:57

And the reason why is because they didn't have they didn't have a plan for the money, they didn't have any goals and they were just so excited to get that money because a lot of times it's more money than you know. Most people have seen that they make, you know, poor decisions when it comes to that. So we also work on the mindset of responsibility and a lot of these things are things that I kind of weed out in my intake forms, right, I work with high level entrepreneurs and so I ask questions like that so that I can understand where people are in their mindset. I won't work with somebody that has a mindset that they're going to be irresponsible, you know, with the money, or they don't really believe in their business. That's for me. That's not my ideal client. I need somebody that is willing to work on themselves in their mindset, that believes in their business and that is going to be responsible with the money that we're able to secure together.

Greg Kuhn: 33:59

And that is a ringing endorsement for a target. Right, and you just you spoke to that target just now. I love that. It makes me think it's one of the cool things about manifest the big stuff about your podcast, about, you know, self improvement and self empowerment is that we can get access to someone like you. Anyone listening can, can hear. You know you're popping the hood for us and you're sharing your. You're laying out a blueprint.

Greg Kuhn: 34:42

When you talk about the type of client that you work with, your ideal client, you're laying out a blueprint for us and I can't help but think that you know we all have targets and, as you so eloquently put, oftentimes we're selling ourselves far short in establishing targets wherever we are on that scale. I certainly think that I mean it. It it's unquestionable that the best, the highest potential to hit a target, the most important thing for hitting a target, is to have a target. I mean, right, you can't, you really there's no chance of hitting it if we don't. And so our how does that? And I'm thinking about people that are listening, you know, and I'm listening and I'm hearing you say do I dare to dream big? Do I dare to dream big and then state it publicly to the universe, to which, by the way, is you know it's a, it's a great way to to increase that accountability and you know, and that motivation. I'm listening to you say that and how do I know? How do I know if, if I'm dreaming big enough?

Rita Owens: 36:24

Scary, then that means you're dreaming big enough. When you dream big, there should be some sort of fear there, right, because it is something that is beyond your imagination. And that's kind of what I mentioned in terms of, like, sometimes people are just even scared to say it out loud or put it down on paper because it scares them, like how dare I want to be a nine figure earner?

Rita Owens: 36:52

Like you know, like things like that, where it's like oh, this is a little uncomfortable and a little scary to say. That lets you know that you're dreaming big. That's what I believe.

Greg Kuhn: 37:05

I love that. So are you. Am I correct to say that you're sharing with our audience that if you're sitting in a place right now where that big dream you have is scaring you, that's not a roadblock that has to stop you?

Rita Owens: 37:34

Absolutely not, and I really believe that when things come to us like and I talked to entrepreneurs about this who come to me with a startup idea, right, if it's something that really just has been weighing on you, I believe that there is a reason why this has popped into your head right, like there's a reason why you have this strong feeling of wanting to create something, and I believe that you owe it to yourself to try. You know, I know that with my first company, my beauty tech company, it came out of me really wanting to have a beauty salon that I could go to for people who look like me and have the same hair texture as myself. That was a high quality salon. It was something that kept coming up in conversation over and over again, to the point where I'm like there's nothing like that out there. Let me create it. Right.

Rita Owens: 38:28

It was scary. I didn't know how to create a brand new you know business but I did the work because I knew that it was something that was important to me and I tested the market to see if other people thought the same, and they did. It just ran out of money. So, but with that, you know, I still say that if you wake up with an idea, and even if you think it's a crazy idea, you still owe it to yourself to try. And again, if it scares you, I think that that is you dreaming big and you owe it to yourself to figure out how you can make it happen.

Greg Kuhn: 39:07

I couldn't agree more. You know, rita, I remember hearing a researcher from Princeton talk about her.

Greg Kuhn: 39:18

She researches human emotions and the processing of human emotions, and she says that the most difficult emotion for a human to process is regret and of regret. The most difficult regret is the regret of things not done. And well, obviously that made a stamp on me and I couldn't agree more. The idea I like to live my life and I journal about this every morning that I am living my life today as an ally of future Greg. And in fact, I know for a fact that future Greg because, by the way, time is a construct, it's an illusion everything's really all happening at once. We don't experience it like that, but we have energetic access, full energetic access, to all the previous and future versions of ourselves. Well, I know for a fact future Greg is saying thank you to me right now for this interview, because A I'm learning a lot. This is great for me, and I know that we're also creating something of tremendous value for folks that are watching and listening to that.

Greg Kuhn: 40:53

And I'm not quite ready to wrap up. Please read. I wanna ask you definitely, I wanna pick your brain one last time about something very important. And before we do that, if I'm listening and watching and I want more Rita Owens, I maybe, I want, maybe I'm interested in a discussion about coaching. I want motivation, I want to learn more, I want to see what you have to say about not getting scammed, all of those things. What are the best and easiest ways for people to explore those things with you?

Rita Owens: 41:31

So the best and easiest way is to head over to my website, which is readeeowenscom.

Rita Owens: 41:38

There you'll be able to find ways to book appointments with me.

Rita Owens: 41:40

If you just want to have a chat about your current situation, if you want to listen to the podcast hoodwinked surviving the scam, which is available on all podcast platforms, you'll be able to find that information there, or you can type it in as well to your podcast listening platform of your choice, and I have multiple ways to work with me.

Rita Owens: 42:04

So if you are somebody that just wants to have a chat, you can go to the website and access that information there. If you want me to take a look at your business and where you are right now, I have a free business scan option as well. You can go to the website and just run your business through there and I can let you know what things are lacking in your business, and then I have some programs that are available for you as well, but we do need to have a discussion first so that I can recommend the best product for you. So those are ways to reach me. I'm also available on Facebook and Instagram. I'm Rita Owens is my handle, so you can find me there on Facebook and Instagram.

Greg Kuhn: 42:46

Did you give yourself that handle, so you never forget.

Rita Owens: 42:50

Yeah, the crazy thing is my first handle was I am Rita Owens. That got hacked so I had to drop the I am and change it to I'm. But yes, it's actually twofold. So the one thing is it's easy, but then the easy to remember. But the second thing is I had issues with really believing in myself and who I am, and when I walk into a room that I'm of importance, and so one of my coaches she recommended me to have my handle be I am Rita Owens. So when I walk in a room, I am Rita Owens, I am who I say I am. And again, that's one of those mindset things where you have to believe in yourself and who you are and that you're important enough to have a seat at the table or create your own table. So it was one of those mindset things that I had to continuously affirm who I am as a person and that's how I came up with that handle.

Greg Kuhn: 43:52

That's powerful. It sort of reminds me. I'm an avid runner and a couple of thousand miles ago in my running life, I used the RunKeeper app and every time I end a run, one of the things that prompts me to do is to rate my run, and they use a scale of five faces, from frowny face to elated face. And I decided a couple of thousand miles ago, you know what I do not want to define the value of this run based on how I felt or how far I went. So I now mark neutral face every single time for the same sort of reason, because it's a totem. It's a very strong reminder of a perspective that's really important to me.

Greg Kuhn: 44:50

I, rita I definitely hear you saying this the most successful people I've worked with have a common thread that I have learned to resolve to follow myself, and that is not using the reality I manifest to define me, rather to use it to inform me, you know, to guide me and move me forward. And the reason I bring that up is because I can't let you go. Hey, by the way, before I ask you this, I think you're gonna have a really cool guest on Hoodwinked coming up pretty soon, so I'm super excited about that.

Rita Owens: 45:38

So you will be joining me as my special guest, which I cannot wait on, hoodwinked, surviving the scam next week.

Greg Kuhn: 45:47

Yeah, I want you to grill me on what the heck is going on.

Greg Kuhn: 45:52

Since I'm, you know, sometimes people call me the law of attraction science guy I want you to say what the heck is going on if we're manifesting our life and sometimes it sucks so bad, you know, I mean, how could that even be possible and what can we do about it? And I know we've been addressing that topic here. I love this conversation we've been having, incredibly valuable, and before I took that detour to plug my appearance on your show, I was starting to ask you a final question, and that is if you're talking to and I know you are on this podcast, you are talking to someone that needs to hear what you have to say, probably more than one someone, certainly. I have needed it. So there's one right off the bat what would you share if you had that uninterrupted audience from somebody who's saying you know, rita, when I love what you have to say, I love what you're espousing, I'd like to get started on building a better life for myself? What do you share with that person?

Rita Owens: 47:18

I would share your contact information. No, you know, I would tell them that the very first step is that right them acknowledging that they want to create a better life for themselves, and then doing the work to really outline what that looks like, because if you don't have you know that outline there, then you'll never be able to create that life for yourself. So, really making that commitment to wanting to change and understanding the why behind it, because that why is going to drive everything that you do in your business and that why has to be important enough for you to keep going, even when it gets tough, because there's a lot of things, a lot of like roadblocks and things like that that are going to come your way, kind of like what you were talking about. Right, we're manifesting all of these things, but why are there still bad things or unfavorable things happening? Being able to work through that because your why is important enough.

Rita Owens: 48:22

So, making sure that you create a list of goals, of things that you wanna do and then be able to plug those into a roadmap, which is what I help my clients with we create. I create a roadmap specifically for each client that I work with to help them to reach those goals, those funding goals that they have for themselves so that they can get started the right way, creating that platform for them to be able to build their businesses up to where they need them to be. So, again, the most important thing is just knowing what you want. Knowing what you want, saying it out loud and creating that plan to get there.

Greg Kuhn: 49:04

Rita your. Why is evident in your energy and who you are, what you shared with us. You've been so generous with us here today. I really appreciate it. I know that we made good on our intention to create something of value here, and I just wanna thank you again before we close.

Rita Owens: 49:33

Thank you for having me. This has been fun and I must say that I'm super excited to be able to continue this conversation because, as you mentioned, this conversation is really important. I'm excited for your audience to be able to listen to this as well, and again I just I really enjoyed myself today.

Greg Kuhn: 49:53

I did as well. Absolutely, I'm gonna join everyone watching and listening and thanking Rita Owens one more time, and also close by saying to you thank you so much for sharing your time with us. Is there anything more valuable that you could share? No, I don't take it for granted. Neither of us take it for granted. It means a lot. So until we get to meet again next time, keep believing and keep manifesting. Who are you reallyelu?