306: Pitfalls of Being a Spiritual Business Owner

Erin Aquin  0:00  
Welcome to the Superabound podcast with master coaches Erin Aquin and Steve Haase, where spiritually minded entrepreneurs learn to build a generous business without sacrificing what matters most. You are listening to episode 306: pitfalls of being a spiritual business owner.

Steve Haase  0:19  
This is one that I am really passionate about, because it's what we are. And we've seen a lot of people go through a lot of struggle to bring their deepest desires and beliefs and calling in the world and turn it into an actual business that works for them and succeeds as a business.

Erin Aquin  0:40  
And so we're going to talk today about the pitfalls, which sounds like a bit of a bummer. Like, okay, do you really want to tune into this sad, sad story? But really, the intention behind this episode is to help you. If you are, I mean, maybe you don't consider yourself a spiritually minded entrepreneur. Maybe you think you're more vision aligned, but you know, if you really feel like your life's work has something to do with your business, which I know many of the people who listen to this show, do feel that way, this really is for you, because there are some things that really trip up those of us who are a little bit more spiritually sensitive, let's call it. It is a really tricky thing to have a business. You know, I'm always saying that I feel like business really truly is a spiritual practice. It reveals all the parts of you, all the parts of the people that you work with, or your co founders, or marriage has a whole other layer to it, because we work together. And so we really want to help highlight some of these pitfalls and give you ideas for how to sidestep them, to avoid them, to deal with them, if they are coming up for you. I think this is going to be a really helpful episode for all of you spiritual business owners out there.

Steve Haase  2:06  
Yeah. So let's dive in. The first two kind of happen on a spectrum where there is a you gotta find the Goldilocks zone between doing too much doing too little. Gotta find that that's that balance, that sweet spot of the first two that we're starting with. And so the first is around your beliefs, there's an oversharing, and there's an under sharing. And we'll talk about the pitfalls on both sides of the spectrum, starting with oversharing as a spiritually minded business owner, as someone who is really up to what you feel like as a calling in the world. It can be easy to really be into your story, to be really into your process and where you're at with things, and kind of making it all about you. We were on a page not too long ago where we were reading it through. We're like, this is all about the business and nothing about me as the potential client, right? And there's a certain there's a certain vulnerability to sharing your story. There's a certain resonance that people will feel when you put your story out there. But if that's the main thing that you are sharing is, here's my journey, here's my belief, here's what I'm all about, you're missing an opportunity to actually connect with the person on the other side.

Erin Aquin  3:25  
Yeah, I think this is a more of a trend, probably, in like the service based world, it's less so in like product based,

Steve Haase  3:36  
I think it's still there too.

Erin Aquin  3:38  
Yeah, it definitely is. So, I mean, like, I mean maybe, maybe just because I work with a lot more service based entrepreneurs, I see it more that people will kind of use this idea that if I just show the world what a cool and interesting person I am, then they're going to want to work With me, which is really not true, because if you're if your story doesn't include why this is going to be helpful, why your experience? Why your expertise, why your education, why your beliefs, if you have spiritual beliefs that you choose to share in your business story, why those are going to help other people as a client, the way I feel when someone just tells me all the things they think and believe and they throw in the dash of their like, religious and spiritual beliefs that really have nothing to do with what they are the service they're providing me. Like, I don't need to really know the religion of the person who I don't know is, like,

Steve Haase  4:40  
didn't do the plumbing. Sure,

Erin Aquin  4:41  
like, like, I don't. I don't necessarily need to know that. If they have a really interesting story and it's like fun and it relates to me, perhaps that will be like a bonus, and that'll be fun if I know that my plumber is an expert on Crystal. Else, maybe I'm going to be like, Oh, cool. That'll be fun to chat with him about that, or her about that, but it's not like an important piece to the service that they're providing me. What actually can happen is you end up probably turning off people who could receive your service. Yeah, and

Steve Haase  5:22  
so the the lens to use to see if this is what you're doing and what you might want to do differently is, where can my persona resonate with with this, right? What am I sharing that really draws somebody in and makes it about them, so that as they read this, they say, yeah, yeah, yeah. This is exactly what I'm looking for. This is me. You can share your personal story in there, but then it has to immediately draw back into why should somebody join you for this? Yeah? Like, not just

Erin Aquin  5:53  
your personal story, but like, we're really specifically talking about like your spiritual lens. Like, does your spiritual lens belong in your business is something that really does come up for people, and I think it is a personal decision how much you choose to share about that. But I would say if you're if it doesn't have something to do with your business, I don't think it's always necessary. I don't think you like, oh, the world your whole spiritual doctrine unless it's really important to what you do. Like, of course, if you're a religious person, in a context where you are going to be teaching people about the religion that they're learning, sure, it totally matters, but I don't need to know. Like, yeah, my plumber's personal theology, necessarily, maybe,

Steve Haase  6:50  
maybe a really niche thing, I guess. I mean, it's just such a little icing on the cake, that is, it? Is it even worth it? So I think when it comes to sharing your beliefs, finding the connection between where you're coming from and what you're offering, which actually connects us to the next point, because on the other side of the spectrum is under sharing. And what I mean there is where you're not rallying people around a shared vision, the kind of sharing about your beliefs that makes all the difference is where it's connected to where you're going, why your business exists, who it's there to serve. And so many leaders and business owners just don't do this part. They're like, look, it's going to be great. You know, this is what our thing does. This is why you should buy it. You miss the opportunity to enlist people into a bigger story, where they see themselves. They see the purpose of your business, of your offering. That is where a lot of people kind of undershare.

Erin Aquin  7:52  
I was like a chronic undershare in a lot of ways, even though I feel like I've worked in in a spiritual realm, really, specifically for a long time. You know, I was an acupuncturist, I was a yoga teacher. In some of the coaching we do, it makes sense. We even have a program where we, like, talk a little bit about some of our personal beliefs, and I call them beliefs, but I would say, like, the things that I'm open to exploring, because belief kind of indicates that, like I think that I'm right and I think the rest of the world is wrong, and I'm going to tell you what, how I'm secretly judging other people, but that's not really my experience. My experience of spirituality is these are the things I'm really interested in, open to exploring. These are the systems and the tools that I use that actually, I think, enhance my life and make me a better person. And I don't necessarily think that my little set of those things is best for everybody. So because of that, I was definitely an under sharer in a lot of ways, and it really took, probably, I think there was a two week period where I had a whole bunch of my clients kind of share their like beliefs with me. They're like, I'm really, I'm really scared to come out and say that I'm helping people in this way, or that I love this modality. And I was like, Okay, so a lot of people are feeling this way. I think it might be helpful if they knew a little bit more about me, enough to know that I'm open and receptive to exploring anything that might seem weird to standard society. And

Steve Haase  9:42  
so I think when you kind of step over that boundary, you're opening a door for people to find themselves at home in your organization, whether it's as an employee, as a customer, as a client, there's a kind of strategic you. Sharing where you're being vulnerable in order to open that door, to create a community, to create a safe space. Yeah,

Erin Aquin  10:08  
we were talking to MK on the connected brand podcast a while back, and they shared that something that their organization does is like vibe checks, and that's kind of a spiritual practice for work, because it assumes that everybody there believes that their energy matters, and believes that they can adjust it, and that it matters to like kind of bring in a collective energy. And so I thought that was really interesting, because in that corporation, that is a practice that they all share, and somebody who doesn't believe in any of that stuff is probably not going to be a right fit to work in that organization,

Steve Haase  10:51  
exactly. And so when we were creating our vision and values, one of them is that we expect magic. It's one of the values of Superabound and by by oversharing that value, that enables us to have that as part of the conversation, that enables the people that we work with to realize that that's the space in which we work, and it allows our clients to know when they're at home, you know, with with a business that expects there to be magic in in the way that we work, had we just kept that, kept that close to our hearts, the energy of that statement would not have room to manifest in our business, in the way that we do things, in the way that we Do our marketing and selling. And so beware of under sharing, because you think, well, no one will get this the right people will probably get it

Erin Aquin  11:50  
so good. And I think it kind of brings me to another, another aspect of that is sometimes as spiritually minded entrepreneurs, you know, maybe you believe in magic like we do, maybe you use that as part of your process. But I think there's also a whole camp of people that think that the only work they have to do is spiritual work, and they don't actually have to do the monotonous business work as well. I think expecting manifestation or magic without partnering and doing the actual butt in the chair kind of work that it takes to build your business, you're asking the universe to collaborate more than its own fair share. And I know amazing, miraculous things can happen when you are in alignment and you're in belief. We definitely think all that matters. Having the mindset of growth and being open to opportunities is really, really important. But I wouldn't be really comfortable if my surgeon was like, Oh yeah, I read some books and I'm just going to manifest a good outcome for the surgery I'm about to give you. I'm going to want to know that they actually did the work to be able to perform that service. And I think sometimes, as business owners, this is not just for spiritual business owners, this is for a lot of business owners. Is we become our own boss. We become entrepreneurs because we don't like the way that regular society makes us work, and we think I'm gonna have all this freedom when I work for myself, when you do it my way, yes, you probably get to do it your own way if you're in an unregulated profession, but it's still gonna require you doing the work of creating trust with your customers and your clients, providing what you promised, going above and beyond that. Hopefully you're creating a generous business so you're, you know, really bringing a lot into the world. It's not just putting up a website and hoping and wondering why things don't just fall into your lap as a spiritual business owner, if you believe that your work in the world is tied to something bigger, whatever that looks like for you, you have to honor that with putting in the time, the effort and the actual energy in the ways that make your business successful?

Steve Haase  14:43  
Yeah, it's, um, I think it's a peculiarity of spiritually minded business owners that they would think because I have this pure motive, because my business is out there to do good. You. Should just grow on its own. The universe should, should give me some goods, like, I'm a good person. The universe should, should give in return. Yes, it will, yes it does. It can't, not, but it requires you to put in the right effort in the right ways, which kind of brings us to the next point around not doing the work. A lot of people think, Well, I'm I'm so special. I stand out in all these ways. The business should just come to me. And underneath that, I think, is often a belief that marketing and selling is sleazy and that, you know, you just shouldn't. You shouldn't be required to do those things. Most people go into entrepreneurship. They become business owners, not to do the marketing and selling, but to do the thing that their business is for. And honestly, about half of it, maybe more, maybe less. I don't know what the exact amount is, but a lot more than most people think, is the marketing and selling side of it. And so a pitfall of being a spiritually minded business owner is being hands off with the, you know, the dirty commercial side of things. But the fact is, it can align with your values. That's why we often talk about, you know, our relationship based selling and really helping people find their own way to market and sell that is authentic to them, authentic to you as a spiritually minded business owner, yeah. And

Erin Aquin  16:28  
I mean, this is also, I think, a product of a lot of spiritual cultures. Think about how many religious paths, how many spiritual paths, sort of look down upon the wealthy. I can't think of very many where, like, having a successful business and a healthy bank account is like, smiled upon. I'm sure there are some out there that are like, yes, having having money is important for the world that we live in. It's one of those things I definitely, I'm sure. I've shared this before in other iterations of this podcast. But when I was a yoga teacher, I remember not ever wanting to, like, touch the money. I would put a basket at the front of the class, and just everyone would have to put their money and their checks in the basket, so that I wouldn't Sully myself as the yoga teacher who's touching the money, even though that money was how I could teach, that money was how I could pay the rent I was so I just had a really dysfunctional I think many of us do a dysfunctional relationship with money, and I've since decided that money is actually a very sacred resource that lets us live our vision. And so it really is important not just to scrape by, but to actually have what you need, so that you can overflow with abundance, so you can superabound, which is really what that word means to us. But being able to, you know, it's the cliche of pouring from an empty cup. Everybody's thirsty, but when you are able to overflow, it's so much easier to give to people who need it, to support the people who are paying you to support more of the world and actually be an example, hopefully to other spiritually minded business owners, that you can be very successful on your own terms and and have that be true in every sense of the word, without sullying your spiritual nature,

Steve Haase  18:53  
it's so important because there's definitely this belief, this dichotomy of like, the thing that matters is my spiritual evolution and the stuff of the world is of less importance. The money is actually a detractor from my spiritual growth and refinement. I mean, there are some groups that really focus on material success. There's definitely all kinds of groups where they connect those two. Actually, they're like, No, your spiritual growth means your business will grow too. And so that's cool, if that's part of your belief system. But I think more often than not, there's the idea of, you know, money is the root of all evil, etc, etc. So be aware of that pitfall and how that might be manifesting for you, for instance, if you want to raise your rates, but you kind of shy away from it, or you're aware that other people in your industry charge significantly more than you do, and you just can't see yourself doing that. It can be a kind of false modesty, a false. Humility that is just allowing you to stay comfortable in a place where you're undercharging you're undervaluing yourself. Honestly, that's another reason why one of our values is revenue reflects impact, so that it gives us a straight line to the revenues that we generate is actually part of our mission with this business. They are not separate items, and that enables us to have that sense of vision, sense of focus, and also want to create a business that is an engine for that as well.

Erin Aquin  20:35  
Yeah, so very important. You have to participate. You have to participate in every area of your business. You know, I'd love to just light a green candle and have all the money come in. But the truth is, learning how to sell to market and do that not as a begrudging thing in your business, but as a way of honoring the generosity of you devoting your life to this thing that's going to help impact the world in this positive way. It that is too as a spiritual practice. So that's part of your job spiritual entrepreneurs is figuring out how to not just do sales and marketing, but how to fall in love with it, and how to have it be authentic and in alignment with your vision, so that you have what you need, so that you can continue to give generously. Yeah, so

Steve Haase  21:36  
if you feel yourself thinking that that's outside the bubble, you're like, Oh, this is my area of expertise. And this other stuff, you know, I just don't want to touch it. That's an area to look into. Yeah. Okay, so we talked about the spectrum of, you know, finding your sweet spot. We talked about not doing the work. The other side of that, of course, is overdoing the work, which just confusing

Erin Aquin  22:03  
you to say we're like, wait, what do you want me to do? Work or not work? It's the chair. It's

Steve Haase  22:09  
the paradox of holding both. You know, it's like being aware of when you want to flip into one or flip into the other, because it's often, you know, we'll be doing both ourselves, and then you want to find your own authentic way forward. So overdoing the work looks like burnout. This looks like doing all the things. It's an expression of a lack of trust that you will have that collaborative response from the universe. And because you don't trust that, you will, you just do all the things. And

Erin Aquin  22:41  
again, it's tricky. We don't know the ins and outs of everyone's business who's listening to this, but if you look at what you're doing, where your attention is, how many days a week you are in your business, versus, like being a human, living their life, kind of being free from from the business for that period of time, you can probably quickly know where you are in the spectrum. If you are sitting back hoping the phone rings, you're probably not doing the work. If you are throwing all your spiritual understanding and trusting of the universe out the window when you sit down to work because you really don't think it's going to happen, you might be end up overdoing the work. So one of the things we often start with actually, not often. We pretty much always start with people. We actually will take you through this inside of gross move, which is our follow along on your own business. Course, the very first thing we talk about really establishing your vision and your values. Because if you don't know what the top of the mountain vision looks like for you, or you don't even have a sense of what that is, and you aren't sure what your operating principles are, you're not sure how to know if you're doing something that's in alignment or not, you will probably end up overworking and overworking to a point of burnout, because you will just be trying all the things. You will be switching it up every other day, or going through the cycle that many people find themselves with this particular spectrum, overdoing, not doing overdoing, doing nothing, working really hard, not doing anything for three months. So many business owners spiritual ones especially, tend to do that because they're not tending their inner flame. They're not working in accordance with their vision and values. And so it's really important that you have those big spiritual things in front of you when you sit down at your computer. Mm. Hmm,

Steve Haase  25:02  
so you'll know you're overdoing the work when you don't pause to take a moment to reflect, when you aren't starting your daily, you know, planning or your weekly meeting with here's our vision. Here's why we're here. Those are signs that you're just in do mode, rather than kind of shifting between visionary and working. You need that. You need both of those ingredients for the soup to be delicious. You know, if it's going to be a successful business that has your values in it, you need the success, which is doing the work, and you need the values, which is the reflection, the kind of the bigger picture. And I think the reason spiritual business owners are prone to the kind of overdoing the work is because of the sense of calling. Oftentimes, as entrepreneurs, we've quit a, you know, well paying day job, in some cases, to go work on our passion and and the sense of like, well, this thing has to succeed. I'm going to do everything for it. And the belief that I need to be taken care of too is like, way in the back seat. You're like, this is my baby. This needs all the care. And you kind of sacrifice your body at the altar of your mission, of your of your business. And like Erin said, that often leads to some pretty bad outcomes. You know, you have a great q4 and then you need to take January to recover from it. You're like, I didn't need a whole month to recover from my day job, right? It was just kind of a ongoing low level anxiety, but because now I'm suddenly living my dream, I'm going to sacrifice everything for it. So that is one of the big pitfalls of being a spiritual business owner. And

Erin Aquin  26:57  
to even go back to something that you said, because I'm just nodding along here thinking about my burnout journey, which starts our book, Superabound, a big part of that is often related to to that bottom line, to the money, to the thing everybody thinks is dirty and bad. And it actually reinforces a lot of our negative mindset and negative relationship with money is that if you're undercharging, you're undervaluing, you're going to have to overwork, because you've actually set yourself a baseline where you feel comfortable people are willing to pay what you are asking, And then you're overstuffed with clients. So that's another clue too, that it may be time to really work on the money mindset and see where you're at. Is if you are maxed out at your current rates with clients, and you still aren't making ends meet in your own life, that is not how business works. That is not a successful business. And I'm not saying this. I know someone's going to hear this and they're going to say, well, you're just talking about being greedy. You're just talking about raising your rates for no reason. That is not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that for a business to be successful, it has to have cash flowing. The CEO and the operator of the business that's you has to be making enough so that their life is able to support them and sustain them. My biggest mistake the pitfall that I fell right into and then had to close businesses that took me a decade to build up to some financial success was that I stopped putting and investing my own time, energy and my own revenue back into my well being. I was teaching 11 yoga classes a week, but I could barely find time to actually get to a class where I got to be the student I was treating, you know, tons of patients in my acupuncture clinic every week, but when was the last time I actually had some bodywork of any kind? Having the knowledge isn't the same as taking care of yourself, knowing what you should when you hear yourself say, I know I should be resting. I know I should sleep better. I know I should really dial in my weekends. When you hear that, should that internal wisdom, not the external people telling you, but like your own inner calling, and you're not doing it, that is a clue that you are heading straight for burnout.

Steve Haase  29:38  
So the solution to it is in our book over here and shoulder that you can't quite see here. It's called the tending triad, and we talk about this a lot. It is there to help you keep that inner flame burning brightly, and if you're doing that, and you know, we also have a section in there on the goal swamp, which is, uh. Another way to, you know, find yourself going in circles rather than towards your actual lantern, on on the mountain of your vision. That's how you, you know, doing those things, staying out of the goal swamp, tending your inner flame, is how you avoid the pitfalls. It's how you create a successful, spiritually aligned, Vision driven business, and that's really what we're here to help you do.

Erin Aquin  30:29  
Yeah, so if you missed it, we also gave you a quick start guide in our last episode over at besuperbound.com/generous, and these are some ways that will help you create a more generous business, one that feels very spiritual and very aligned for you, but doesn't require you to give too much. We really want to think about that definition of generous. Generous doesn't mean giving everything away. It means coming to your business with the spirit of generosity, as though your business were a gift to the world. And when people pay you to engage, when they listen to your work, when they read what you have to say, when they buy your product, you're generously giving that to them, and they're going to use it because they exchanged for it in some way.

Steve Haase  31:28  
So go ahead and get that. It also includes a free workshop that we are offering to just be even more generous with that quick start guide. Help you put it into use for your business. Besuperabound.com/generous. And thanks for listening. We invite you to subscribe to the show if you haven't already, leave a review, if you love what you're listening to and follow us on the social medias. We're everywhere @besuperabound. See you next time. Take care.