We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Shakira Denise a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Shakira, appreciate you making time for us and sharing your wisdom with the community. So many of us go through similar pain points throughout our journeys and so hearing about how others overcame obstacles can be helpful. One of those struggles is keeping creativity alive despite all the stresses, challenges and problems we might be dealing with. How do you keep your creativity alive?
There comes a point in every creator’s journey where the goal is no longer to prove something — it’s to preserve something. For me, that something is purpose. After years of reinvention, rebuilding, and re-emerging, I’ve learned that longevity isn’t about staying relevant; it’s about staying rooted. My path has never been about chasing success but about faithfully stewarding the vision God entrusted me with — even when the applause quiets and the process stretches me thin.
What keeps me in it is knowing this work isn’t just mine. It’s a calling that continues to unfold through faith, discipline, and divine timing.
I don’t chase creativity; I protect the conditions that allow it to find me. My creativity stays alive because I stay connected — to God, to stillness, and to the truth that I’m a vessel, not the source. I learned early on that burnout doesn’t come from doing too much; it comes from doing too much without intention.
For me, it’s journaling through the noise, letting silence stretch until clarity speaks, and remembering that I was chosen to create from a healed place, not a hurried one. Every season of stillness, heartbreak, or uncertainty has become raw material for what I create through Emerge — it’s how I turn pain into poetry, resistance into rhythm, and pressure into presence.
But staying creative also means being willing to risk the version of yourself that once felt safe. My ability to take risks was developed through faith — through saying yes before I saw the outcome. Entrepreneurship and artistry both demand that kind of trust in motion. I’ve learned that obedience is the risk — every leap from comfort to calling has been a masterclass in surrender.
So I don’t fear risk anymore. I understand that when you’re walking in divine alignment, what looks risky to others is often just the next step in your becoming. I don’t force the process — I fellowship with it.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
Professionally, I’m in a season of expansion — not just in business, but in depth. I’m the author of This Oil Cost Me Everything and the founder of Emerge Collective, a faith-based lifestyle and wellness brand created to help individuals align spiritually, emotionally, and financially so they can show up as their highest selves in both life and business.
What excites me most about the work I do is the way it bridges healing and purpose. Emerge isn’t just a brand — it’s a movement centered around restoration, alignment, and creative freedom. From poetic devotionals and guided journals to apparel and holistic wellness offerings, every product and message I release carries the same heartbeat: becoming in silence, emerging in power.
This year marks a pivotal moment for me and my community. We’re introducing Nāya House, an expansion of Emerge that merges infused wellness, botanical living, and intentional rituals for mind-body balance. It’s the continuation of the same purpose that started this journey — to help people experience wholeness, not just success.
At the core of everything I do is a simple belief: healing and abundance can coexist. My work exists to prove that faith, creativity, and strategy can build legacies — not just brands.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Looking back, the three most impactful qualities that shaped my journey are faith, discipline, and discernment.
Faith taught me how to move before I saw the full picture. Every breakthrough in my career started with obedience that didn’t make sense on paper. Faith built my resilience and gave me language for seasons that could’ve easily broken me.
Discipline taught me how to show up even when motivation ran out. Purpose requires structure — the ability to honor your calling through consistency, not just creativity. I’ve learned that you can pray for expansion all day, but without discipline, you won’t have the capacity to carry what you’re asking for.
And discernment taught me how to protect what I’m building. Not every opportunity is divine, and not every voice should have access to your vision. Discernment helped me recognize the difference between alignment and distraction — and that’s been one of my greatest lessons as both a creator and entrepreneur.
For anyone early in their journey, my advice is simple:
Start with faith — trust the assignment even when you don’t yet see the results. Develop discipline — because mastery is just devotion in motion. And seek discernment — it’s the spiritual GPS that will keep you from chasing what was never meant for you.
How would you spend the next decade if you somehow knew that it was your last?
A book that played a profound role in my development is actually my own — This Oil Cost Me Everything. Writing it required me to revisit the parts of myself I once tried to outgrow and offer them grace instead. It wasn’t just about publishing a story; it was about documenting a resurrection.
That journey taught me that the anointing always comes with a cost, but that cost becomes the oil that sustains others. The wisdom that poured out of that season reminded me that sometimes we write what we need to read — and that our transparency can be someone else’s lifeline.
Which has me thinking: if I knew I only had a decade of life left, I’d spend it pouring that same oil with even more intention — writing, teaching, and creating spaces that remind people that healing can be both holy and human. I’d spend more mornings in prayer, more afternoons in stillness, and more nights surrounded by laughter and purpose.
Because if my time were limited, I’d want every word, every product, and every prayer to echo the truth that you can turn pain into power, faith into foundation, and purpose into legacy. That’s what This Oil Cost Me Everything taught me — and it’s how I’ll keep living, no matter how many decades I have left.
Legacy, to me, isn’t measured in years — it’s measured in impact. And if my words can outlive me, then my purpose has already been fulfilled.
Final Quote:
“Legacy isn’t measured in years — it’s measured in impact. And if my words can outlive me, then my purpose has already been fulfilled.”
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.plantoemerge.com
- Instagram: @_shakira.denise_
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@_shakira.denise_
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