HauteART

BY OLIVIA HSU DECKER

Beyonce from the Africa Love category

ERIC GREENBERG’S JOURNEY FROM INTERNET BILLIONAIRE TO ARTIST OF LOVE

WHEN I FIRST MET ERIC GREENBERG IN 1999, HE WAS 35 YEARS OLD AND WORTH OVER $1 billion as one of the most successful “dot.com” internet entrepreneurs. He was about to marry his lovely fiancée Carmel. I sold him a home in Ross for which he paid $17 million to include all the furnishings. Eric told the seller, “Take your windfall profit and go enjoy your life.” The sale set the record for highest price in San Francisco and Marin County in 1999. The 7-bedroom, 8-and-a-half bath estate on almost three acres land has a 12,500 square foot, Tuscan villa style main house, a limestone guest house, an Italian style pool, a gym, and a 3-car garage.

Eric and Carmel had a fabulous wedding at Treasure Island in Las Vegas, Nevada. He hired Elton John as the wedding singer. He then embarked upon construction of his home with a 31,000-bottle wine cave 60 feet underground and a state-of-the-art home theatre designed by Lucasfilm Skywalker Ranch theater professionals. He installed over 20 security cameras and audiovisual and sound systems with 25-plus zones. He rebuilt an amazing garden with landscape designer Ron Herman who was the landscape designer for Larry Ellison’s amazing Woodside estate. Ron created Greenberg’s Japanese hydrangea garden, English garden, organic vegetable garden, lavender garden, and rose garden.

Greenberg was born in Brooklyn, New York and grew up in Las Vegas, Nevada in a poor neighborhood. His father was a salesman for Clairol and his mother worked as a cashier in a casino. He

graduated from the University of Texas with a degree in finance and worked as a banker, a salesman for an internet company, and as an information consultant for Arthur Andersen. In early 1990s, he was a salesman at Gartner, offering technology consulting to companies. With his aggressive salesmanship, big ego, and intense personality, Eric was successful and making a half million dollar annual income in tech consulting. He was in his twenties.

In the fall of 1995, Eric was walking around a conference with Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang. He saw a lot of executives who were curious about digitizing their businesses but didn’t have the knowhow about the technology. “There are no IT folks there,” he said to himself. Eric wrote a business plan for a company he named Viant, and it instantly became one of the biggest and most successful web consulting firms in the 1990s. His client list included American Express, JP Morgan, Kinko’s, and Radio Shack.

He then left to found Scient, essentially the same internet consulting company, with further success. Scient went public in May 1999, which made Eric Greenberg an internet billionaire in the mid

Artist Eric Greenberg

Scient went public in May 1999, which made Eric Greenberg an internet billionaire in the middle of dot.com boom. Scient stocks comprised most of Eric’s worth. When the company went public and shares climbed to more than $120 at one point, his personal net worth increased to around $1.4 billion. He lost 95 percent of it during the dot.com crash in 2000 when Scient stocks plummeted below $1, then down to zero.

dle of dot.com boom. Scient stocks comprised most of Eric’s worth. When the company went public and shares climbed to more than $120 at one point, his personal net worth increased to around $1.4 billion. He lost 95 percent of it during the dot.com crash in 2000 when Scient stocks plummeted below $1, then down to zero.

Now, years after having lost almost everything and getting away from the world of tech company start-ups, Eric stopped working and left the tech world. He traveled and studied spirituality, getting in touch not only with his Jewish faith, but also with Buddhism and Eastern philosophy. He also confronted some of his personal issues, including parts of his childhood. He switched to a healthy diet and started a health food company called Beautiful. In 2008, he co-wrote a book about the Millennials titled Generation We: How Millennials are Taking Over and Changing the World. After letting go of all the past endeavors and boom and bust, Eric Greenberg is back as an amazing artist! Last year, he told me he took up painting and invited me to see his work. I was impressed with the joy, love, colors, light, and optimism in his paintings which evoke thoughts, ideas, feelings, and stories that make people feel good, uplifted, and inspired. I was also surprised to see Greenberg’s personal transformation from an egocentric and aggressive big-talker into a calm, healing, artistic, loving person. Prior to the COVID-19 crisis, he had solo shows at Scope/Art Basel, Palm Beach, and Palm Springs.

Here is my exclusive interview with Eric Greenberg for Haute Living.

HL: This is truly remarkable transformation. When, why, and how did you start? EG: In May of 2018, I picked up my first paintbrush. I had never taken a painting lesson or studied art. I was a collector, a designer, a creator, an entrepreneur and tech guy, but my work was never my true essence—only bits and parts.

The light which heals me cried out to be expressed. My paintings are living expressions; they are my medicine. I humbly share these to give back the gift of learning to love myself and others. My prayer is to awaken human consciousness. HL: Where did you find your subjects and inspiration? EG: I paint love. Beauty is love manifested. It is the essence of what is within and what heals the world. I believe that we are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers. I care about the world and where it’s going and how we, as citizens and participants in the story, can help shape the energy and collective consciousness, thereby making the world a better place by creating a new generation of humanism: how we become better human beings, create true community, and spread these blessings. My paintings make you think. They are iconic ideas and stories. They are optimistic, light, colorful, and happy. They evoke feeling and make people feel good—lifting people and providing inspiration to become their best selves.

HL: How did you re-discover yourself after all your experiences in the internet and business world, from a billionaire lifestyle to the loss of everything to an artistic, healing, and loving person? EG: Simple questions, but two answers: the real and the constructed. I did not know who I really was or what I really should be. I set up beliefs, personality, and behaviors that created two images: what I wanted others to believe and what they perceived. The problem is that both were incorrect. I used coping mechanisms and tried to explain my way out of seeing and owning the truth. Everything was an excuse. That is a hard reality to wake up to.

Creation is love manifested. So is beauty. We are inside the Creator and our soul is a divine spark. We know the soul through intuition, senses, and feel. We think, experience emotion, act, and behave our lives into creation. Along with that comes ego, personality, and all the little influences, habits, and dispositions that cause us to act human, or not.

Deep within our soul is pure light and love. Sometimes it is obscured and hidden. We act out our lives and become who we are, going on a path which may, or may not, be in alignment with our best self.

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HL: Was this “waking up” from the past so painful that you had to heal with your art? Do you think you are healed and at peace with yourself and the others? EG: I was the opposite of what I really should have been. I had to wake up to my ego reality and own that I did not love myself and, hence, I could not love others. I squandered, acted entitled, and behaved poorly. I created a reality distortion field that made me into a flawed man with little flashes of light.

“The best in us is in us” says Plotinus. And the meaning of life is to strive to be that best. We know what is right, we know love, but can we be that? I took the hard step to truth, owned it, and began a healing process that realized me as a painter.

My childhood was abusive, poor, and angry. My personality was framed by fear and lack and not feeling loved. I was bullied and religiously taunted. Eric Greenberg became the real-life reflection of my childhood wound. Despite my pain and flaws, I had a light within me. It bestowed me with great talent, strong drive, and an ability to create incredible abundance and opportunity. I had it all, as they say. Except me. I was not love.

There were good parts of me, but my other side overcame those, again and again. My surface life started to implode at 39 years old. I was a dot.com wonderkid who got fabulously rich, incredibly fat, and poorly behaved. I was not my best self and lived in denial. I copped out and created a distorted reality. On the surface, I played a character that hid my pain and shame. I had to wake up and take a hard look into the mirror to see my truth and pierce the veil of ego, illusion, and denial.

Our lives are our stories. I needed to change the script. We experience and create what resides inside the universe of self. It took all my courage and strength to see the truth of what I was and embark on the journey of healing. But we are not alone. Rather, we are inside the Creator and the true self is the “all self.” I care about people and the world. You matter. HL: Now that you have found a beautiful life in your art, what can you tell people who are

suffering the current virus pandemic and inequality? EG: On the surface, a “beautiful life” can seem different to that which we experience. We live every waking moment in our own, sometimes tortured, universe, fighting the battle of ego and self, often without knowing and being love. Now, I found love within myself and in my paintings.

The process of growth and healing is continuous, like change. I invite you to share my journey with me through my art works, and please accept my love and blessings. For Eric Greenberg artwork online gallery, please visit www.EGreenberg.com

Untitled from Faces/Lips catagory

Untitled from Faces/Lips catagory

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