Hey, it's Samantha Hartley of the Profitable Joyful Consulting podcast. This is Season 3, we're talking about consultants and consulting, and I'm very excited today to talk specifically about the concept of business as a spiritual path.

To do so, I have a guest with me, my returning champion, Christopher Carrick, who is a spiritual director, and he works with seekers who are in transition or having some kind of a spiritual struggle. And he helps them see the meaning and the breakdowns and blocks so that they feel more connected and have more clarity about their path. I wanted him to specifically engage with us today on the topic of business as a spiritual path or spiritual journey.

The reason I did this is because I work with a number of people who are drawn to working with me because I'm talking with them about how to multiply their revenues like add $600,000 to $750,000 in a single year. And when we look at the block or barriers to doing that, like who's the bottleneck in the business, it's almost always us. And the entrepreneurs I work with are very much centered on their connection to the divine. And I wanted to really point out that even though we're talking about something spiritual, I'm not talking about any specific faith, tradition, or path. What is important to me is less the specifics of what that faith is and that my clients do have some sort of a connection to something bigger than themselves, some sort of divinity, and they feel themselves to be a part of that. And the more I notice they stay connected to that, the better their results get. So it isn't just about some kind of personal development, overcoming mental-emotional challenges and things like that. Specifically for my clients, they are looking to have a spiritual connection in which they are connected to this broader divine and they're channeling or receiving or downloading through themselves some sort of genius that they're using to change the world with. So that was my inspiration for today's episode and Christopher, I wanted to just say hey to you and welcome back. Christopher spoke with us in a past episode about the topic of overcoming self-sabotage, specifically the concept of having an inner saboteur.

And so welcome back today, Christopher.

Good to be with you.

Thank you.

So when I talked to you about this idea, what I'd love for you to do is outline like a spiritual path. I'm not sure it's clear to everyone what we mean when we say a spiritual path and also like, what's the path of an entrepreneur. I know you work with a lot of entrepreneurs in your business, I think almost exclusively. And so you have seen kind of how those can be in parallel, as I have seen.

Yeah, I do think that people who own their own business, who are entrepreneurs are more likely in a way than the average person to in some way be a seeker. And that has a lot to do with a big generalization here, but a spiritual person as opposed to a religious person is in a sense saying, I'm not going to go through an institution, I'm going to try to create or discover my own particular path. And I think that's what an entrepreneur is doing too is saying, I don't want things dictated to me. I want to discover who and what I am. I think I have an idea, but I want to go and put that into practice. So from a spiritual perspective, most people have a feeling that there's an eternal or essential or true self and we come into this dimension and we project an identity into the world in order to explore, in order to grow, in order to discover. And by the same token, I think an entrepreneur is saying, I'm going to enter the realm of business and I'm going to project an identity, this specific business into that world in order to grow and explore and kind of reveal my true path. And of course, not every entrepreneur is a spiritual seeker but I think that type of personality, the kind who says, I want to go discover it for myself, I want my true experience, not the general one. And it's going to bring you to questions, kind of fundamental questions, whether in a spiritual sense or in a business sense of who am I? Where do I belong, where do I fit in? What's my purpose?

Right, I love these concepts and I feel like, you know, one of the things that I repeat a lot is that the organization takes on the character of its leader. And as an entrepreneur, we might be a business of only one, or we might have twenty or thousands. But for most of my clients, there's one of us and maybe five to 20 or 50 team members who are around them. And I think what I've noticed is it's really all just like a projection of me, everything is a reflection back on the leader. And the opportunity is to say, what is this trying to tell me? What messages does everything around me have that are telling me who I am, how I'm being, and things like that? Years ago, I was visiting friends and I tripped on something and fell and sprained my ankle. And the person I was with, instead of saying like, oh my gosh, blah blah blah, she said, "Why do you think you sprained your ankle?" And I thought, because I fell down. But what I realized was I'm responsible for everything I do. And I have an opportunity to use everything that happens to me to take responsibility for it and to use that to try to understand something that in that case, to make a long story short, I realized I had a fear of moving forward. I didn't feel supported in moving forward and that kind of meant that the leg that would venture out into the future collapsed under me. I have now dozens and dozens of examples of the way that I'm taking messages in from my life but I think it's very interesting that my clients, I would describe as they are pursuing, they're delivering their gifts through the medium of business.

They're delivering specifically spiritual gifts through the medium of business. That's who I would say that my clients are for the most part and that they have the opportunity to say, what is the business trying to tell me? So what kind of things and what kind of messages can I understand through my business?

Well, so you brought up one, which is what's my responsibility also what's not, right? Because in the same way, again, to keep the analogy, good parallel analogy going, in the same way, we're doing an internal journey and an external journey. And so what I can't see inside, I need to see outside of myself. So I'm going to a mirror, right? So partly I'm going to be able to get the information I can't read in my internal journey, I'm going to be able to read in my external journey but that requires taking responsibility and also simultaneously being allowing and accepting of what happens when I put myself into the world and we're doing a co-creation in a sense, which is also a deeply spiritual concept. So the responsibility is a big one, another one I think that going off of what you just mentioned is awareness. The moment you're describing is for somebody who raised your awareness, this information is there if you choose to look at it this way, if you choose to take responsibility for it and whether you're doing the internal or the external journey, the developing, the willingness and the ability to have that kind of awareness, to get the information, to interpret it, to synthesize it and then make changes, put things into practice, that's a huge part of it.

Yes and I see that for so many entrepreneurs, it's like what's the feedback that I'm getting from this? I think one of the biggest things I want to point out about taking responsibility, what I mean, and I think what we're both saying is it's not about taking the blame for something, we say we're a no blame, no shame culture in my and my business, with my clients, with my team, and with myself. I don't blame myself for things that happen. I don’t riddle myself with shame over things. But I am willing to take responsibility because when I do, I get to make things different, so that to me is really important. And I feel like the center of all of this that we're talking about is really self-leadership, self-management, self-care, being very oriented on being in control and power and whatever, but really connected to spiritual energy and awareness as you said, being aware of what's going on around me and saying, like, what is this trying to tell me?

Yeah and developing the sensitivity, I think, to take in that information, a big thing that I find coming up a lot now with the spiritual business path is that a lot of people are doing that next level version of this journey, which is that it's about empowerment in a way that they're not familiar with. So it means plugging into a larger thing and becoming a great delivery device, becoming a great antenna for what wants to come through me, like I said before, kind of what's your purpose? And a thing that I find myself talking about a lot with people now is the idea that what work is changing. So it used to be a lot of granular and obvious and papers and typing and stuff and more and more now I think and this is a very difficult shift to make, it's kind of counterintuitive. Your work now it's almost like if you were an athlete, it's like your work is to be in great shape. It's to have your body ready so that when you get in the game, you just do. So from a spiritual and business point of view, it's how to practice awareness, how to be taking in information, how to be open to that. And so, for instance, like I have a client who talks to business, she goes in and sort of helps the how the culture is going and how the management is working and all that other stuff, well, she knows her stuff, there's nothing more to learn, but she's already an expert. And what we realized was that she was putting a lot of energy into relearning, making sure organizing it's not wanting to screw up, it's not trusting that she's an expert. And what happens is the more that she is willing to show up and do her thing, which sounds irresponsible, but it's not because her energy is going into, is being really good at taking in the information that she's given and particularly coming into the room and reading it. So everything she does follows from who's there and what their needs are and they don't necessarily have to know, they don't necessarily tell her; her skill is actually taking it and saying today in this place with these people, here's what they need and trusting that what needs to come forward will be there. She doesn't have to force it, she doesn't have to put all her energy into making sure that she's already good at and knows what she's already good at and knows.

That's such a great example, I have a client who does almost exactly the same thing in that she has been many times, and I talk about the idea of the next level client. Many times we fall into situations where somebody comes in and we're like, I don't know what I'm going to do and they find themselves, this is what I say, getting divine downloads or channeling spirit. They find themselves saying things and they're like, wow, this is a brand new idea for me I'm having this idea for the first time and I hear myself answering questions and talking and doing stuff that I didn't know I knew. And as you're saying because they have been prepared and they're doing the work and they're showing up for it, they're really connected and they get in flow with the greater genius, whether that's collective unconsciousness or whatever it is but they feel plugged into the genius that is kind of beyond themselves. And it's an amazing feeling and as you're saying, I think the opportunity is to be spiritually in shape right? It's to take care of myself, be well-rested and then trust that in times when I get into situations where I don't know what's going to happen or I don't necessarily know what I'm going to do, I can go in there, relax and allow my genius to flow through me and be exactly what the recipients of that genius need at the moment.

Because, again, I think that the spiritual part is in a way, this is a co-creation. This is what when my soul and this realm interface, my soul is a portal to something more and that's the work, the work is to be the cleanest, most effective channel for that kind of thing. And so then you get into aspects of like staying conscious. So, in other words, get the lesson, don't go into forgetting, right, because that lesson is going to ask you to change. It's going to ask you to take steps and that's going to feel uncomfortable for a lot of people. So they'll go into forgetting, you know so that consciousness takes a lot of discipline, boundaries is another huge one because the spiritual path is oftentimes about transitioning away from I'm so smart to I'm able to channel wisdom and so you need to create a safe place, a creative place inside you for that stuff to come. So again, your work more and more create the safe place, keep the boundaries, treat others and have them treat you with respect, respect your time, those kinds of things, because that creates the bowl for the message to come to for the inspiration, for the creativity to come to and through.

Yeah, that sounds like where I've seen a lot of people have to do really hard work. I think a lot of the spiritual path is about understanding what my genius is, my unique geniuses, and bringing that into the world, owning it, and things like that. So there's so much more to say about that, what you kind of mentioned just now is boundaries and I feel like so much of especially service businesses and my clients are consultants, so this really comes up for them in client selection, like everyone around them as a projection of something and their clients are there to teach them things a lot. And so if you are not really good at respecting your boundaries, you'll find your client is a huge time waster. If you are not good at it, if you're just not clear on your value and not certain of your value, you'll have people asking for discounts all the time or asking for things for free and it's amazing because my clients at very high levels will experience this. So I wonder if you can talk a little bit about, what a difficult clients and you know even not so difficult clients, but difficult situations with clients are there to teach us.

So to me, it's about drilling down to the kind of the core message, so I mean, you mentioned value, our work is obviously about survival and thrivial, it's a big part of our culture but underneath that, we've assigned money as the thing that says what is valuable. So when you're having money issues, to me, the spiritual path asks you to examine, well, what am I not valuing or what am I not allowing to be valued? And it's usually self, but oftentimes it's people around you. It can be clients, it can be aspects of your own business. So it’s yes, it can be things like, do I value myself? What are my boundaries? You know, you mentioned also what is my guess? What is my purpose? Because we have an idea, right? You've created a business.

You have a pretty good idea of what it's supposed to do, but it might start to reveal, oh, it's actually about more than that. Well, I'm thinking of a client who she is, she came into a business and what she discovered was she was there to bring peace and stability and again, sort of creating that group creative environment. So she would pick up on, oh, there's this little argument over here or somebody disrespecting somebody over here or somebody doesn't like somebody. And she would do internal adjustments and resolve stuff or like when she was dealing with a client and they were having conflict or couldn't decide things that called forth from her a gift that they don't have to know about like she's not going to engage with them about it, but she's going to create harmony for them to step into, she's going to invite them and that little shift it creates business success, but it also clarifies for her. This job, this business is a way for a deeper thing about me to be brought into the world, it's an invitation to say, here's what I'm really here to do. You know, it's not necessarily to sell widgets or give advice, it's to create energy transformations, it's to connect people, it's to create an external environment in the business where when people I mean, this is another interesting thing to work on with people. Can you create an environment where when people walk into your office or these days when they engage through video where and I think this probably happens with you a lot is where people connect and then they go, oh, this is different, right? Because you're there to create the energy that people can step into because they want to change, they want transformation, and now they don't have to know or understand that's what you're here to do and then you might find that other places in your life where that belongs, where that can come out. But I think business is this really intense, focused, valued by the world, has scorekeeping and measuring and tons of feedback. And so it's a really great, you know it's jumping into the deep end of the pool. But those are the kinds of a spiritual path, elements that can be revealed.

Well, one of my best, worst examples of a difficult client and teaching me something that I think was part of my spiritual journey was the realization that I couldn't help everyone. So she was someone who had come to me for advice and then I started working with her and then whatever advice I gave her, she would reject and so as a creative person, I would say no problem I can come up with more advice, I would adapt that and give that to her and it just went on and on and on until one day you said to me, I think the way to help her most is to, in this situation allow her to fly her plane into the side of a mountain, which was metaphorically saying she's got to try this, crash and burn on her own before she realizes that what I'm offering, the ideas that I'm offering are actually what she really needs.

So it's kind of an extreme example, what I remember that the thing that bothered me about it was that I said she's constantly punching my ask for help button and when people hit that button, it makes me respond in a certain way. And what I had to do was become inured to people asking me for help and that I would go through the process of discerning if they really wanted my help or not or if they just wanted to talk about it. And since then, I've been in many, many situations, and I just never taken I never take the hook anymore on this. One of the people who are like, I want your help, I need your help. They can literally say those words and I now know that's not what it takes to mean that they really want help. So that was one of my personal spiritual journeys that I had to learn through my business it would have been impossible for me to grow my business had I still been addicted to helping everyone who asked for it and no matter how sincerely or insincerely they did, so I really was able to get over that one.

Yeah we unconsciously will draw call in people to block our progress to fill you know, if you have X amount of seats for the client availability and when you have a dud sitting in one, that can be mirroring back to you, you might want growth, but you also might have misgivings right? So a great way to disguise that, for instance, would be to invest in the I can fix anything, it's my responsibility to never say no, I love it, so you're saying that when the consultant says yes to the wrong opportunities, they're actually unconsciously sabotaging their own growth? Yes, I mean, if growth comes in a lot of different forms and spiritual is going to be personal growth more but when we don't want to grow, and that's you know, entrepreneurs really putting themselves in the position to have to face that, they're shoving it in their face, it's going to answer the question, what's in my way to going to that next level? It's almost like a prayer, it's almost like saying please reveal to me and the problem is that we don't get told, we get shown. So it's going to put you in that position and it's going to say you have a misgiving about growing or you don't want to be this aware or you don't feel safe.

What's or you're not clear, the intention of most businesses is to grow and in order to grow, I've said to my clients so many times, and I've said it multiple times this week, you're going to have to do things that are that the current version of you is not going to want to do, it's hard, it's outside of your comfort zone, it's uncomfortable, it makes you feel needy like there is all kinds of things that makes you feel vulnerable that you're going to have to do as part of your business in order to grow and I think that's what you're saying is key. So you're saying we desire to grow and then basically that launching that intention triggers from the universe information about what's in the way of our growth.

Yes, it's a big feedback loop, and I think the more we see it that way and the less in a weird way, we take it personally, which is another spiritual skill, I think as saying in a way, whatever feedback I get is support. It's letting you know what is right and so instead of going into denial or pushing through, can you hear it? And perhaps even more importantly, a real core spiritual skill that I think is critical to entrepreneurs is discerning, it's listening for is this no I'm scared, is this no I don't feel prepared, I need more information or am I getting a thing that says, this is going to feel bad, but the answer is yes. In other words, it's saying this is going to take some courage, but you should do this. This is the right thing, so merely a bad feeling isn't enough, that's the trigger to say, what are you telling me? For the spiritual business path, one of the kinds of counterintuitive things is intuition, because you're a business, it should make sense. It's about numbers, it's about business facts and it's the right way to do things. And most of the time, I think when people come to you, they're just saying, look, just tell me what the answers are, what should I do? And part of the answer I feel like you're giving them back is you're going to have to cultivate the ability to say this makes sense but this is right and what's the difference? How do you feel, when do I make the make sense choice? When do I make the rash? Because that's part of it, too it's all balance, there's the intuition, there's the rationale. And it feels really risky business because there's money involved and there's an enormous amount of pressure and responsibility on you. But developing that ability to recognize who even though this feels scary or weird or wrong, or people will disagree with me or triggers my fear, failure, or success or whatever it is, just being able to know. I know that yes when I hear it. The intuitive, yes and I don't necessarily need to understand it.

Because for one more way that I see consultants struggle is in receiving support, so there's definitely I think this kind of classic you know I'm going to go out and start my own business and a lot of the baggage that goes along with that is like I should know how to do everything that comes along with that.

And I really see that with getting help to grow the business, but also especially when they try to hire a team, I feel like there's more meaning in that than just like I'm not that good at delegating or I can't find the right person to hire. I think in many cases when I've talked with my clients, there's been a kind of a more of a spiritual issue that they then worked to resolve and I have some who have spent years and are now amazing at having a team and receiving support actually, I would say I overcame that, I worked really hard to overcome that and now have an amazing team and am able to receive support through the business so kind of what's your perspective on that?

Well, in a larger sense, I would say, again, if you're seeing your business as the channel through which you're delivering your gift like you came to the planet and here's a big fire hose for me to send it through yours. A lot of the feedback is going to tell you whether you're doing what you think you want or what is wanted for you in a sense. So you may think you're doing the right thing and it may make all the sense in the world, but if it's not actually in alignment with what you're being asked to deliver, you're going to get a lot of impediments. So in a kind of macro-level, support means the universe isn't going to send you to do something, and then when you do it correctly, leave you on your own right? It's sort of like a matching grant it's like the more I fill into my path, the more that path is going to rise to say there you go, which is a huge act of faith because most entrepreneurs feel like they're on their own. So it's sort of a more micro level that support is going to show up and be reflected by the people and the circumstances around them. There's going to be all those choices like if I pass up the imperfect client, do I learn to trust that that's creating space for the right one? So I'm giving, it's almost like giving away bird in the hand and then in hiring can be very simple so it's going to be a reflection of what you're asking for and that's a tricky one because if I think for a lot of entrepreneurs, they get into that like I have to do everything myself, the problem and so that, for instance, would be a great message that you're going to get out of who you hire, if you're hiring people who are bad at their job, there's probably something behind that which is saying, I feel unsupported and I need to show that to myself or I'm scared about allowing support and so unintentionally, not consciously, I'm going to pick people who epitomize that, who induced that experience in me. And if I don't take it personally and I'm willing to change and I'm willing to work on, this is where it gets weird, a higher level of power, because we're used to the first one. We're used to the I'm going to make it, I'm going to pound it into shape that's how powerfully. When it's time to graduate from that perspective, that ability is going to start to fail you. It's like the universe takes it away to say, listen, there's a different way to go and I know it feels weird, but you have to release into it and you have to let people help you and you have to let people be good and your ego is going to say, of course, I want that but the evidence is showing you something else.

Yeah, I mean, I have so many examples of this personally and I mean personally and through my clients and when it comes to mind is my client who is really feeling fearful about the business and really kind of concerned-looking in the future. And he did some work on his past and he had an incident in his childhood that kind of defined lack of support from the universe and he kind of revisited that and reframed it to where he kind of developed, you know, began to be able to trust the universe and like almost immediately he just had like a surge of sales in his business. Had another client who just has really traditionally struggled to have to find team members and they kind of always let him down and no one's been good enough and things like that and I think a lot of that is less about perfectionism, even though it's kind of presents his perfectionism and is much more about trust that I can be supported and again, the ability to receive and I have we just recently spoke with one of my clients on the podcast, Patty, who talked about replacing herself. She's been hiring capacity, hiring team members so that she can take on more clients and the latest one that she's hired is actually somebody who is basically doing her job. And for so many entrepreneurs and especially consultants, it's like I'm the expert I need to be doing that. And she's hired somebody who can do that and the thought, I think, that prevents us from doing that is like, what would I do in the business? And I heard this amazing quote this week that was “The business does the work, not me” isn't that amazing? So for consultants like,I do everything like I'm the center of all of the work when looking at how exciting it is to think the business does the work. Like I build a business that can do the work and then you bring in the genius like you're designing it, you're running it, you're doing all the stuff. But what if the business did the work and not you?

Yeah, I think that that's a really nice point, what it brings in mind for me is kind of this idea that we are stewards instead of saying mine, it's almost like giving birth right? That thing is going to have to go on and have a life of its own but you're the one who is looking at it and saying, what do you need? Yes, sometimes I feel I sometimes have to let you be yourself. Sometimes I have to let you make mistakes and sometimes I have to intercede but it's totally understandable that you would have that feeling. On the other hand, it frees her up really, it's saying you're being a great steward, like enjoy.

It's about the gifts that you're bringing through and not so much about you doing it all. And I love the idea of stewards, stewardship is like it's so much, you know, it's about the thing that is outside of us. It's, as you're saying, the baby, the community of children you know, it's the bigger thing and that to me is like so much closer to then being able to have something that is even bigger and of more impact, not restricted by our own personal capacity.

Yeah what also comes to mind about that is, again how a spiritual perspective will shift, what you're describing is, it's almost like to stay with our metaphor here, that child has graduated college. So, yes, you've done your work, but it's going to be sad, it's going to be painful. So what's helpful in this goes back to the awareness piece, is to see that moment of I've hired somebody who does what I used to be the hero of and what does that make me and say instead or to recognize what's probably happening is you're graduating from this level to another significant level, so you don't know what's ahead. This is opening up an opportunity, but because it's a big change because it's a major transformation, you're going to be done with things, you're letting go of things, and so what's called for is a recognition of that is a mourning process. So my point is we shouldn't tell her, hey, don't feel that way this is good news, it's to say it's fine to feel that way, it might mean this right? So if you see it properly and mourn it properly and do the work to let it go, that's giving you fuel and space to create the next step as opposed to the fear of, wait a minute, I'm losing and I don't know what's going to come in its place.

Well, and that's a great spiritual practice to release the need to know the next step and to embrace what is I mean that we're contained within this or so many spiritual practices that I think can help us to be in less pain during the spiritual journey. As a business person, you can't afford mistakes it's all on you but to me that the next level always involves greater consciousness, more depth, greater connection and that's always going to involve letting go, that's always going to involve going into the unknown and what I would encourage an entrepreneur to do is really continue to touch base with and recognize that while that's scary, it's also really exciting part of you really wants adventure. This is about discovery it's about risk and when we're getting bogged down by too much risk or need to know ahead of time. That's a thing that really requires awareness, it requires us to notice, oh, something's in my way now I can step back, not take it personally, analyze it, and sit and see what's the feedback? What's the gift you're giving me? What is this clarifying about my next steps?

Absolutely, and I think it requires faith, I mean the whole point of faith is believing and trusting in an unknown future. So on that note, I think we've put some ideas out there for my listeners to consider and our viewers and I hope that this topic has stirred up some ideas for you to ask questions of your business and to look at maybe what your spiritual path has been and how your business is being a spiritual journey for you right now or Christopher, has a Facebook group called your Spiritual Adventure, which you might check out but what I really love about that is I definitely love thinking about my business as a spiritual adventure, and it makes it more funner on the hard days and more meaningful on days when I might need a little boost. So I hope you've enjoyed our conversation today Christopher, thank you very much for being with me and having this conversation we very often have behind the scenes for the benefit of our listeners today.