Your business is alive.
Your business is not an inert entity, like a lump of clay, available to be planned and molded straightforwardly according to your plan.
Instead, the truth is a lot more interesting, and a lot more miraculous. Ever feel like your business has a mind of its own? Ever notice it being unruly and mischievous at times, and determined to teach you something important at others?
It’s because Your business is a living, pulsing, breathing being.
And it consists of a set of relationships that are equally alive. Here are some examples of those relationships:
you + the spirit of your business
you + money
you + your clients
you + your methods of marketing and selling
you want your coaching business to contribute to the liberation and thriving of all beings.
I was trying to do that for my own business… and noticed something.
I noticed that I first had to free my own business relationships from hidden, subtle, internalized patterns of oppression.
Those patterns are based in scarcity, neediness, reinforcement of supremacy, and a desire for control.
When I believed myself to be powerless and in need of “saving”, when I tried to mold myself according to someone else’s standard, when I tried to “earn” safety and worthiness by climbing to the top of the pyramid…
… I realized that I reproduced those same dynamics of inequality, subtle violence and manipulation in all of my coaching relationships.
And I looked around and noticed those same dynamics everywhere. Here are some examples of how I’ve seen that can show up:
Tying your worthiness to making more, more, and more money
Contorting yourself to fit a “desirable” standard... according to a sexist, racist, ableist, and cisheteronormative culture
Not creating and sharing from a fear of “getting it wrong” according to an invisible external authority
Believing that your clients are in lack and therefore in need of your “rescuing” when you coach them
Handing your power over to other coaches and experts, so they can “save” you from your problems
Attempting to manipulate people into liking you and buying from you and calling it “strategy”
Overriding your own needs, emotional truths and inner knowing to work yourself into exhaustion for fear of what will happen when you stop
Overriding the unique ebb and flow of your energy to force yourself to be “consistent” and “on message”
Those patterns, as difficult as they may be to look at, are not inherent to you.
They are not who you are.
But you have internalized them. So have I. So have we all, because we are all heirs to oppressive legacies of patriarchy and cultural imperialism.
We were trained to try to be more male, white, Western, logical, “professional,” deferential to authority, and productive to the demands of industrialism.
We were taught so at home (where many of us were told “boys don’t cry” and “girls should be sweet”), in school (where we were taught to sit down, behave, and get A’s), in the workplace (follow the employee manual, and be rewarded with a paycheck), and on TV and magazines (be white, thin, and rich to win everlasting love).
It’s no surprise that you internalized that, the more you obey your oppressors and mold yourself to be more like them, the more safety you could negotiate for yourself yourself, and the more status you could earn… supposedly.
So you got used to ignoring your instincts, buffing out the edges of your creativity, shaming your own tenderness, and saying “sure, I’d love to” when you mean “fuck no”.
I believe our most fundamental mission as life coaches is to create freedom from these patterns of thinking and being.
It is up to us to pioneer and model new ways to build more sustainable and loving ways of relating, loving, and serving.
And it can start with your business.
This is the work I am inviting you to.
Sovereign Business Mastermind
Decolonize your business from the inside out.
Sovereignty is defined as the ability to govern one’s own realm.
Do you have it, when it comes to your coaching business? Or do you feel seized by standards and rules not of your own choosing?
(Since you are not literally the Queen of England nor the Emperor of Japan, I am applying this idea to the energetic realm of your business, which you reside in and rule over).
If you don’t feel at home, dignified, and authoritative in every aspect of your business, how do you find your way to sovereignty?
Let’s systematically work through this question.
It is time to question every assumption, destroy what no longer serves, and re-build our businesses from the raw material of our personal power, core values, and highest vision for the world.
Here’s what this looks like in each different “realm” of relationship:
YOUR RELATIONSHIP TO THE SPIRIT OF YOUR BUSINESS
Go beyond one-dimensional niche, messaging and strategy into the wild and fertile space of complexity from which true innovation can come about
Instead of trying to avoid or “overcome” chaos and uncertainty, lean into them and use them as the building blocks of your artistry (yes, your coaching business is a work of art)
Create a truly sustainable business by marketing and selling from the authenticity of your imperfection, not a static branded image
Cultivate devotion, rather than “consistency” that is proven by your record of “clocking in and clocking out”; after all, your business is not a factory.
YOUR RELATIONSHIP TO MONEY
Permanently exit the hamster wheel of “not enough” and “more is better” that keeps peace and sufficiency juuust out of reach, no matter how much you’ve accumulated
Spend and invest your own money as a form of activism and statement of creativity, in accordance with your highest ideals for yourself and the world, and model this way of decision-making for your clients
Instead of feeling weird about charging and making money, see your clients who pay you money as powerful, well-resourced allies in co-creation
YOUR RELATIONSHIP TO CLIENTS
Liberate your relationship from all subtle dynamics of manipulation and control (e.g. wanting them to like you, think nice things about you, or get sufficient results to validate your worth as a coach), and serve from what remains — pure loving presence.
Learn how to set powerful and loving boundaries, and model for your clients what it’s like to live into them
Nourish yourself first, and serve consistently from your own overflow
Overdeliver NOT by giving away a whole bunch of crap and hustling out your time, but by holding your client to their most expansive self-concept
YOUR RELATIONSHIP TO MARKETING AND SALES
Burn down any structure or process that does not feel like deep freedom, and rebuild it from scratch based on the values you hold dear
Permanently exit the game of “winning” and “getting,” and enter the infinite game of sacred co-creation with spirit and your clients (you’ll know you’re in it by the way you feel: spacious, playful and enchanted)
Create your own workflow in marketing and sales based on honoring the rhythm of your own energy and creativity
Sell coaching not to “save” people from their problems, but to meet them in their highest visions of their lives, and inspire them to live into their truth
This work goes way beyond what is conventionally thought of as “business coaching.”
It will ask you to reach so much deeper into your spirit. It will ask you to feel so much more into your animal body — the tugging of your heart, and the sensation in your belly that lets you know, “get out of here,” or “ah, this is home.”
And it will change the inner integrity and sustainability of your business forever.
This is joyful, essential life-giving work. It is also deeply uncomfortable.
When you go all in on recovering your sovereignty with us, you will collapse decades of personal growth into 6 months.
Get ready for giant breakthroughs, identity-changing experiences of love, and spine-chilling serendipities.
And also -- brace for profound discomfort.
That’s often what happens when you’re no longer chasing after the familiar targets: the dopamine hit of the next sale, the next client, the next income goal.
The brain first gets very disoriented when you try to get “clean” from the compulsive need to “do it right,” be virtuous, be praised and liked.
When you get rid of all of that, you might not even know which way is up for a while!
But when you do this, you will also find inside you a well of resilience and resourcefulness, which you maybe didn’t notice before.
You will cultivate a greater capacity for self-intimacy that will allow you to grow into each new level with a deeper friendship with yourself.
In that fertile ground where the relief of self-love and the pain of disturbance mix, you will experience genuine innovation.
And it will show up in your business structure.
In the flow of your day-to-day activities.
In the number of naps, dance breaks, celebratory sex, and vacation days you give yourself.
In your copywriting.
In your sales strategy.
And in the depths of transformations your clients experience.
That’s when you really have a “one-in-seven-billion” business.
And the demand for your work, and the impact of your ideas will reflect that.
But more importantly, this journey will give you that profound and enduring sense of joy and self-possession.
The kind that doesn’t intensify when you have a shiny new achievement, and doesn’t diminish when you have a temporary setback.
That is a rare thing.
The ultimate prize.
And you will get to know it over and over in the course of the 6 months... and carve it into your neural pathways for life.
You belong here.
When you enter the Sovereign Business Mastermind, I will not be your teacher. I will not be your authority, your boss, nor your rule-giver.
That would only reproduce the oppressive power dynamics between an imperialist master and a colonial subject.
Instead, I will lead you through a guided tour of the sovereign kingdom of YOU.
I will be a facilitator between you and the spirit of your business.
I will hold up a steady mirror to your unique genius.
I will assemble for you a team of allies — fiercely intelligent, deeply skillful and like-minded coaches who see you and will push you to live into the most uncompromising truth about your purpose.
I will ask you hard questions, and sit with you without flinching until you get to your own answer .
I will hold unconditionally loving and accepting space for you to feel every emotion, no matter how gnarly, at every level of intensity. (Spiritual bypassing will have no place here.)
And I will reflect to you my insight and experience as a 7-figure coach who has built a platform known for its imperfect authenticity and loving service…
... while reminding you that I am, at best, a court advisor… while you sit on the throne as queen of your own domain, making completely different decisions from mine to create your own uncopyable legacy.
Leave your limits and assumptions at the door.
Bring yourself, your ambition, your art, your activism, your drive, your questions, your triggers, your wounds, and even your childhood dreams.
At the end of the 6 months, you will be living inside brand new relationships grounded in your values and ongoing conversation with spirit.
And you will have a business that feels vitally alive, serves humanity’s most pressing needs, provides essential nourishment to everyone who encounters your marketing and selling...
… and feels like HOME to your soul.
And you’ll want to curl up and take refuge in it, forever.
Sovereign Business Mastermind
We start in October 2021, and work together for 6 months.
There are weekly calls, and a Facebook community.
There is also magic, surprises, unapologetic woo, and high weirdness.
The investment is $20,000, paid in full.
Applications open July 6th through 9th.