Keeping business and spiritual life separate
For many years I’ve kept my working or business life and my spiritual journey effectively separate.
I don’t think I was unusual in this. In fact, I think it was and is the norm. Which did not make it good.
Looking back, I feel that was an unfortunate, unhealthy disconnect between a large part of my life – working, doing business – and what more directly feeds my soul, my spiritual life.
The other day I described to someone the feeling I had about that as being something like my being in two parts, walking along two separate although parallel paths and not really seeing that as being such a big problem
But I know that deep down I was discontented about the situation. I just didn’t see a way to change it. So I tolerated it. Not a great way to live at any stage.
The good news is that now, any lingering sense of a need for that division, that separation, has changed, since Suzie and I plugged into our online, affiliate marketing platform and community.
It took me a while to not just focus on the money
When we first started on this platform, I was focused on the money that could be made and the evident scope to transform our financial situation into one of abundance and freedom: no more just “getting by”, “making do”.
The financial part of the story is still important and will continue to be. It’s a business.
But it’s a business with a difference.
Because, as I soon discovered, there was a lot more to the business community than I had realised.
I discovered that I been gifted a way to bridge that long-standing separation of the “mundane” side of my life – the working, the businesses – and the spiritual. A way to mend that disconnect.
I discovered that the leadership, the culture the leaders promoted, and the conversations among colleagues, were all supportive of seeing the business aspects and the personal development or spiritual aspects as being much better together than, as it were, kept in separate compartments, or on separate paths.
No, I did not have a sudden illumination, a road to Damascus type vision.
More a slow-dawning realisation, a growing awareness, a connecting of dots, a feeling of coming home – or at least to a homely, friendly, “you’re on the right path” kind of way-station on my life journey, including – very definitely – my soul journey.
It’s a cultural framework that doesn’t in any way diminish the value or productivity of the “business of business”. In fact, I find that, for me at least, it actually enhances that value and productivity.
Not that my transformation is by any means complete. For example, I’m experiencing some serious discomfort in sharing publicly about all of this.
I’m clearly not yet over that old limiting fear of “what will people think?”.
Thinking that some of my connections here on Facebook may now think less of me, even pity me from the standpoint of their view of what’s real and what’s not. Some of them will perhaps even be friends of long standing.
If I was as spiritually evolved as I’d like to be, I would not give a second thought to that – let alone a third or a fourth.
I’m working on it!
One very practical reason for continuing to work on it is that real, lasting success in this business where we use attraction marketing, depends on my being willing to freely share my real story, not a made-up one, or a partial one, or an airbrushed, “Photoshopped” one.
So for a while now I have been feeling that, to be authentically participating in this public space it would do me good to share these thoughts. And who knows, that might help others who may have been experiencing a troubling sense of disconnect, like the one I’ve been writing about here and that I felt for a long time.
But I was still conflicted, with part of me feeling:
- it was not the right time
- people would not want to know
- some people might even be turned off
- some might tune me out of their social media, if not out of their lives!
I was jolted out of my procrastination on this
It took one training session conversation with our community earlier this week, and one participant’s comment, to jolt me out of that that “what if?” negative thinking, that lazy “maybe soon” procrastination, that ultimately pathetic preoccupation, “what will people think?”
That one training session conversation and the one specific comment have catalysed me into hitting the keyboard today, to at last share these thoughts of mine.
The particular conversation was about connecting our business with our soul purpose (so named, or by whatever alternative terminology people are happy to use for that kind of meaningful, “what else there is beyond business” aspect of our lives).
One person, who evidently did not perceive any disconnect, asked why anyone would want to disconnect them. I responded, although I think I was the only one who noticed, that far from wanting to disconnect them, I was wanting to connect them more effectively, more harmoniously.
And then what I noticed in the stream of comments, was confirmation, if I had needed it, that this community is not just a group of people wanting to make money (not that there’s anything wrong with that), but is a community where:
- It’s ok to speak about spiritual values
- It’s ok to speak about soul purpose
- It’s ok to practice meditation
- It’s ok to go on spiritual retreats
- It’s ok to share setbacks and challenges in our personal and spiritual growth
Actually, it’s more than just ok. In this community, these things are seen as important, and for many or most, essential.
By the way, in case it needs to be said, it’s not a cult.
And although my own spiritual path is faith-based, and specifically Christian, generally I have no clue about where others in the community are “coming from”, or not, in terms of their own spiritual journey or personal growth trajectory.
What I do believe is that this openness to sharing about spiritual – or personal growth – journeys, as well as about more apparently mundane aspects of business, is a definite part of why I and others in this community often speak about how supportive the community is.
Because, while there is a huge amount of sharing about, say, social media strategies and marketing, there is also encouragement to talk, share and post on social media, about family, about relationships, about health and healing, about service to others and philanthropy.
Things that, in the final analysis, mean a lot more than relative degrees of business profitability.
And If someone is going to think about working with me on this business, or with any of my colleagues, it’s surely better to know, isn’t it, who I really am, what I stand for, what my values are? And that includes the awareness that this soul journey is a key part of who I am and who I want to be, and the change I want to help make in the world.
I still want this to be financially profitable
- Each day, first thing, I spend time in meditation, prayer and journaling.
- Each day I read books to help me be a better person, not just better at business.
- And, knowing it’s a business and that means work, each day I spend blocks of time – usually two to three hours – in what a colleague of mine calls “IPA” – income-producing activities.
- Those business activities can include creating Facebook ads or other content for social media building my personal brand on social media, responding to enquiries about the business, and working with our team to help them grow their own businesses.
I definitely don’t just sit in meditation!
Because It’s a business.
- A business where we use attraction marketing, via social media, on a high converting, high commission, highly automated marketing platform that allows the everyday person to build a successful business online and create the lifestyle of their dreams.
- And in doing so help many others also create the freedom they yearn for.
Would you like to know more about that and how it might work for you? Just drop a “tell me more” as a comment below or on the Contact page and I will get right back to you.
