#BEYOUROWN MEETS EMILY JOHNSSON

Wish Tree founder Emily Johnsson, is an intuitive transformational coach, heart-led business mentor, writer and change agent for peace. Here to help you as a healer, coach, wellbeing facilitator and artist, Emily supports you to create, launch and grow your abundant heart-led business in alignment with the true you.

To Wish Tree, Emily brings her training and experience as a transformational life & leadership coach and with that, 15 years of running her own heart-led business, working across different countries, cultures and languages. Since 2018, Wish Tree is run with her “twin-flame“ and beloved husband Rick Orme. Rick gives Divinely Masculine tech support on their Grow your Soul Tribe and Live your Light Mastermind programmes, and co-creates the vessel for transformation that Wish Tree is. So get ready to buckle up, embrace your authentic leadership style and learn to get to grips on how to shine brightly.

Hey Emily, can you introduce yourself to us?

I’m Emily Johnsson, I’m an intuitive transformational coach and heart-led business mentor to coaches, healers and wellbeing facilitators worldwide. I lead a company called Wish Tree, a movement called Time to Shine and am the creator of the Intimacy for Success model™ for heart-led business owners. I help coaches and healers create, launch and grow their heart-led businesses in alignment with their purpose and to shine bright being their true selves. I’m passionate about protecting our planet and supporting more peaceful humanity.

Can you take us through your journey to where you are now?

Ever since I was a young child, I have been a purpose-driven person, wanting to make a difference in the world. My mother raised me a Peace Activist. However, for most of my life, my work was about having a sense of purpose, rather than living my purpose. Due to a belief that I wasn’t enough just as I am, I also sought out worthiness through worthy causes.

Although the energy wasn’t always right, I had some wonderful experiences travelling and working as a learning researcher, audience development strategist and creative consultant in the fields of arts and education. Then between 2011 and 2016, I experienced a series of stark personal losses and griefs. The gift of these experiences was that I woke up more fully and deepened my spiritual awareness, practise and life-wisdom. I trained as a Life and Leadership Coach. In 2016 I was guided to create an online platform, an Academy for Healers, Coaches and Wellbeing facilitators, to live their purpose through their heart-led businesses.

What is a day in the life of you like?

Each day of my week is different from the next. That’s how I like it. However, there are similar ingredients in most days. I have a weekly schedule that I follow, to help me focus and set boundaries around my work. Most days there is usually group coaching and mentoring across my programmes, 1-2-1 coaching, creating social media content, writing. Going for a walk. Meditation and Kundalini yoga practise. Cooking.

What is the concept behind Wish Tree?

Wish Trees are magical places that have existed across cultures and continents for thousands of years. Wish Trees are places where we are invited to step outside our busy lives and connect with the whispers of our hearts, then articulate them as intentions and offering them to the tree.

Modern Wish Trees often have paper tags with wishes and reflections are written on them hanging from their branches. Seeing the wishes of other people floating in the wind connects us to our common humanity.

Wish Trees are s symbol of hope and Peace. John Lennon’s wife Yoko Ono uses them frequently in her art. The higher purpose of all of Wish Tree’s work is to support more peaceful humanity that lives in more alignment with the Earth. How do we do that? By supporting coaches, healers, and wellbeing facilitators to live their purpose and be the change. I support the healing of the healers so that they have the courage to step out there and help more people live healthier happier lives.

How is Wish Tree funded, is it bootstrapped, self-funded etc?

Wish Tree is a self-funded company.

Can you tell us more about your brand DNA and ethos within Wish Tree?

Wish Tree’s brand DNA includes the values Love, Peace and Mother Earth. Everything you see on social media, our website, blog etc will touch on these three values. You see in everything from content to images to the choice of colours and shapes we use in our branding.

Can you tell us how you are supporting people to live their purpose and shine brightly through their heart-led businesses?

In the Wish Tree Academy, we place equal importance on both our clients’ inner healing journey and making sure they have the latest business know-how in our field of work. The inner healing we say yes to when we embark on our heart-led business journey is about accepting that we are imperfect, but enough. The language we use in Wish Tree is that we return to Love. Because when we don’t know that we are enough, we live from a place of fear of judgement and rejection. We don’t shine so bright when we fear rejection. And we don’t tend to feel connected to our purpose either. Leading a heart-led business means we are in the Business of Love, and that means accepting the invitation that Love begins with us. With our own healing. With loving ourselves more. We can’t give what we haven’t yet embraced ourselves. When we love ourselves more, we are free to create our lives and our businesses from a place of joy and peace. That’s when we are going to be the most open to learning business skills too and allow ourselves to be seen authentically in the market place.

Can you highlight 3 ways we can explore our greatest vision?

“Our vision only becomes clear when we look inside our heart,” said the psychologist Carl Jung.

Our heart holds the answer to everything that matters to us. It’s the wisest part of us. So, connecting within and allowing ourselves to listen will help us have the answers we need to make a vision for our lives and our heart-led business that honours our truth.

In a heart-led business, exploring our greatest vision is also about connecting deeply with the people we are meant to serve – our ideal clients. Without knowing who they are and why we should work with them over other people, we have no possibility of creating a vision for our business either. And we also have no possibility of creating it in a way that is going to resonate with the people who need our service.

Thirdly, I believe that we explore our greatest vision by consulting our bodies. Our bodies know when something feels right and when it doesn’t. Our greatest vision always gets a full-bodied yes, and if it doesn’t, well, then it’s simply not our greatest vision!

Who does the team involve behind you?

First of all, I love this question, because perhaps ironically, people in helping professions are often not very good at receiving. In particular, receiving support from others. We are great at giving. But asking for help and allowing others to support us is often a big deal. It was for me too, a few years ago. Today I’m proud to say that my team consists of my wonderful husband, Rick, who joined Wish Tree last year and is in charge of all systems, tech-stuff and finances. I also have a lovely VA, Uju, who is our customer-care expert and who has the gift of making every client feel seen and heard. We also work with Jonny Wood, who is our web and brand designer. From time to time we also bring in consultants to support us with expertise on particular projects. It could be everything from video-editing to designing systems.

Where can you see yourself within the next 3-5 years?

In the next 3-5 years, I will grow Wish Tree to serve many more thousands of people across the globe. There will be several books. I will be living somewhere sunny. I will hold events and retreats for a wider audience too.

What are the key tools that you use for your trade?

Tools for delivering my work, whether it’s coaching or teaching, is always a loving presence, deep listening, and curiosity. Tools of my trade I guess are online marketing, webinars, cultivating an online community.

Can you tell us what areas you have struggled in professionally?

I have struggled with doing business the old patriarchal way. Competing, comparing, proving, rushing, pushing. That way of doing things literally makes me ill! I always knew there was another way, but I didn’t trust that it would be possible. Now I help others to embrace a different way of doing business. Not only doing business from the heart but being in the Business of Love. Being in the Business of Love means committing to our own healing and growth first, and allowing ourselves to be supported. It also means embracing collaboration, slowing down, connecting with our heart-truth, showing up real and authentic and operating with integrity and care.

Have you ever had any other mentor? If so how has this benefitted you to grow?

I have. Having been the girl who thought she had to do everything herself, I am now passionate about allowing ourselves to be held and supported. We must model what we want for our clients. As a mentor and coach, I must have mentors and coaches! I invest in high-level coaches that are some of the very best in the world. Lisa Nichols helps me to find my voice. Gabrielle Bernstein helps me to choose Love. Meghan Gilroy helps me to own my power as a healer.

What outlets do use to market Wish Tree?

Facebook and Instagram.

Which methods are you using to build your own support network?

I am part of several Masterminds for people in my particular field of coaching and connect with people I’ve met in those networks 1-2-1 too. Support makes for a sustainable business.

What do you believe are the common misconceptions about the coaching industry and how are you using your platform and voice to educate people more?

A common misconception about the industry within the industry (e.g. amongst coaches and healers) is that making money from heart-centered coaching, healing and wellbeing work isn’t really possible – that people will not pay the real value of coaching or healing work. This is of course not true. People will pay for services they understand that they need, are ready for, and see the value in. It’s up to us coaches and healers to give people the information they need in order to be a choice. I’m using my platform to help shift this misconception amongst coaches and wellbeing facilitators through the training and transformational coaching we provide in the Wish Tree Academy. More often than not misconceptions are based on ideas around our own self-worth and what we feel is possible for us or not, so shifting perceptions is often less about education and more about transformation! Choosing to work with people who light us up and charge what our services are worth is opening our heart to receiving and creating a flow of abundance in our lives.

What is the best piece of business advice you have received to date?

To make feeling good a priority, (Gabrielle Bernstein.)

What is the number 1 critical lesson you have learned in your career so far?

To keep choosing to make feeling good a priority. That means making sure I have the proper infrastructure, support, systems, and knowledge to run my business in a way that feels joyful. It’s also making sure I set healthy boundaries around my time and energy. As a coach, if I don’t feel good, I’m not serving from my highest vibration. Joy is the ultimate creator and showing up in a high vibe is what my clients – and I – deserve.

How do you create an evenly balanced work and personal life?

This may sound surprising, but I don’t believe in an evenly balanced work and personal life for everyone. Balance looks different for each person but feels similar. When we are in balance we feel good, contented, harmonious. That is making feeling good a priority. I work more hours than I spend on my personal life proportionally, but I feel balanced because I adore the experience of living my highest purpose. The key is to serve from an overflowing cup, as my mentor Lisa Nichols would say.

A seminal point in your career so far?

Saying ‘yes’ to investing in things that are substantial, such as high-level mentors, support, and tech-systems. It’s been a total game changer. My whole life and business have expanded as a result.

What gives you ultimate career satisfaction?

The honour and privilege of witnessing my clients heal, grow and create their businesses from a place of authenticity and truth. Seeing them shine bright, sharing who they are with the world. Witnessing how their growth helps others grow – the ripple effects.

What challenges have you seen to have been presented during the growth of your business?

The challenge of making feeling good a priority. Running a heart-led business challenges us to look at all our unhelpful behavioural patterns from our past, where we may have put other people’s needs before our own, pleased or proved our worth. They all stem from a belief that we are not enough, that we are not worthy. The more we love ourselves the better boundaries we set, the better support we say yes to, the clearer we are about who we want to work with and not, the more focused we will get, and the less energy we leak. Self-love makes for a healthy business. Every heart-led business gives the opportunity for its owner to journey from fear to love in every decision we make. That’s the greatest gift and the greatest challenge of being in the Business of Love.

Which other leading entrepreneurs and pioneering game changers do you also admire and why?

Marie Forleo, she’s smart with heart. Brene’ Brown as she gives us a language to understand and talk about the link between vulnerability, shame and authenticity Rebecca Campbell is leading us in a divinely feminine uprising.

What is a good article or book you have read recently?

‘Dare To Lead’ by Brene’ Brown and ‘Rise Sister Rise’ by Rebecca Campbell.

How do you define success?