Planning to Go All In on Your Spiritual Business: Part Two
Podcast
Episode:
Planning to Go All In on Your Spiritual Business: Part Two
by Danielle Searancke
This episode is part two of my recent episode Planning to Go All In on Your Spiritual Business. In that episode, I offered tips based on what I would or wouldn’t do again in my transition to a full-time spiritual business. That episode was very popular, and I wanted to share some additional things that I wish I had said.
This path is safer and more secure than any job I’ve had working for another company. I mention a manifestation tool in this episode that I used to visualize my dream schedule as an entrepreneur when I was still in corporate. You can download My Dream Week Schedule and do this exercise yourself! The link is also available after the show notes.
Episode:
Planning to Go All In on Your Spiritual Business: Part Two
Spirit School Podcast
In this episode:
Older generations don’t see entrepreneurship as a path to security
The spiritual bubble is the sacred space of an undercover lightworker
Prepare for difficult conversations with people who have different beliefs
When I said I was a medium, my husband said, “you’re not going to quit your job, are you?”
I had an uncomfortable conversation with a friend with religious trauma
I regretted not sharing sooner with a friend that has spiritual interests
It was uncomfortable telling my boss that I would be doing this on maternity leave
I was shocked that my colleagues asked me to do readings in the Indigenous community
I would declare to Skylar on my way to work that I was here to be of service
I was inspired by younger millennials leaving when a position didn’t feel right
We learn that external validation is nice, but is not what drives us
I was a self-determined kid and my parents have never doubted me
It was hard for people to understand why I would leave my government job
Being First Nations, my kids and I have free benefits
Disability was more stress than benefit, for 40% of my income
I pay myself weekly what I was earning on a regular biweekly pay
I take a modest income and reinvest it in my staff and growing Spirit School
When my brother was ill in March, I was able to be with him for three weeks
The evidence I’ve collected is that a 9 to 5 is not more secure
Know your why you before you invite people into your spiritual bubble
I showed my Capricorn husband a spreadsheet of earning potential
My why was that I wanted to drop my kids off at school and pick them up
We are a matriarchal family so quality of life is my responsibility
I hope my children start businesses instead of entering the workforce
I am demonstrating to them what it looks like to pursue your dreams
Have a few versions of an elevator pitch for different situations
Practice out loud for responses to people who have challenging reactions
In 2020, I found an old journal in which I had outlined my dream week
I cried when I realized that my schedule at the time was almost identical
Get clear on what you want instead of why you are unsatisfied
You can download the Dream Week manifesting worksheet in the show notes
I am opening a free community off of social media on July 1st
The link will be with the July Spirit Messages
It starts with a five-day Spirit Guide Challenge
LINKS
Christie Pike, SoulFlow Branding: www.soulflowbranding.co
The Spirit School Collective
Visit myspiritschool.com for all courses and upcoming programs
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Hello everyone. And welcome back to Spirit School. I am so glad you're here to join me for another episode. This is actually going to be a continuation of a very popular episode I did two episodes ago where I talked about things that you can do to prepare to go all in, in your spiritual business and spiritual practice.
So you can go two episodes back if you wanna hear my first, I think it was three or four tips that I give you on things to consider. Things I wish I did. Things I maybe I wish I did differently. Maybe some things I wish I didn't do. So that could be helpful for people who can see themselves transitioning from either no-time, part-time to full-time light worker, spiritual entrepreneur, whatever language resonates with you around that.
Being a Virgo planner, I definitely wanted to make sure that I felt confident before I took my leap. Even though it was a very big leap, that there was no guarantees. I did do quite a bit of work leading up to it, I would say about two and a half years of work, before taking the courageous step to go full-time in my practice.
So of course, like every other podcaster in the whole world, once we hit publish on our current episode, we always think of other things that we wish we had said. Whether we said them at all or said them differently. And so that's exactly what happened. I got so much feedback from you guys that that episode was really helpful for you, I decided to do a part two with just a few of the things that I wish I had said.
So we're just gonna get right into it here. Now one thing that you need to prepare for in preparation for being able to make a leap of this kind, and one that is not completely socially understood, entrepreneurship on a whole in society is considered, and I'm putting in air quotes, risky, and not as secure as a full-time like nine to five, I'm just gonna say. I don't poop on the nine to five, because I had a lot of great experiences in the nine to five, but on a whole, in our financial institutions, the older generations, they don't see it as a pathway that leads to safety and security.
Throughout this episode, I will definitely share some examples of how I feel it is actually more safe and more secure than anything I've ever experienced in any job where I've worked under someone else's company. I've personally only really worked for small companies. So that's the lens of which I'm coming from.
But talking to your friends, family colleagues, bosses, extended family, is going to be a challenge for a lot of people. Especially people who are still very much in their spiritual bubble. So our spiritual bubble is like the sacred space, which we are like an undercover light worker. We're not quite ready to talk to people yet about what we're doing and what we're interested in because of our lived experiences, whether that is connection to maybe some religious trauma or being surrounded by judgemental people or feeling very criticized in your life. People who are drawn to this type of work are very sensitive people and can get activated quite easily if other people are not validating or supporting our decisions, our beliefs.
At this time, we're still really formulating our own beliefs around all this and building our own evidence that this is something worth pursuing and something that is like very tangible for us. So it makes sense. And that's how come a lot of people don't actually end up taking intentional action towards their dream paths because of the resistance to having these type of conversations, some which could be conflicting, some which could be not very supportive. It takes great courage to be able to stand behind your desire and stand behind your dreams.
So, preparing for some of these conversations will be paramount for you. I've shared this story many times about my first conversation with my husband around my mediumship abilities. The first thing he said to me was, you're not gonna quit your job, are you? And keep in mind, this was in 2013 when I just had a baby. I did not think I was a medium. It actually took me quite a few years to really fully embrace and embody the identity of being a medium. And that really was my first experience coming out of my spiritual bubble, and trying to invite someone in with me, and it was met with immediate rejection. And let me tell you, that experience made me recede even further and further into my spiritual bubble. And I ended up not telling any of my friends or family for almost two full years that I was going once a month for a whole day to a mediumship development circle, because I was so fearful of that rejection, of not being seen, not being validated. It really stung me.
So, when it came time to start telling my friends, and they were basically my mom friends back then, pretty new friends. I remember telling one of my best friends, who escaped from a cult when she was a teenager, so there was definitely some religious trauma there. I remember telling her, and it was actually really uncomfortable because she then opened up to me about her experience with a religious cult and how her opinion on spirituality was very skewed, but she likes me and she trusts me, so she was open to hearing from me about it. And I will say that this friend ended up having me read for one of her friends, and even her mom a couple years later, which was very touching. But that was my second experience.
And then I told another friend who actually did my hair for years and we worked together for years. And the funny thing was that when she came out, she was super into spiritual stuff too. She's like I do Reiki. Yeah. And I do yoga. And I remember thinking at that time, oh my God. We have wasted so much time talking about vacuous things, that we could have been talking about this spiritual stuff this entire time. And I remember thinking, even then, I'll use the word regret, even though I don't regret very much in my life. I use that word because it made me realize that by me staying solo in my spiritual bubble and not inviting people in with me, I was missing out on really deep connections that could have been made and could have been strengthened over time. And this person actually ended up being a long-term student of mine in my home development circles as well, which was a lot of fun.
I remember talking to my boss about it when I went part-time, telling her, this was somebody I still to this day. Respect more than anyone else in this world. I admire the pants off her. She's still a mentor to me. One of the most intelligent people I've ever met. You've heard me talk about her on the podcast before. It was the most uncomfortable conversation I ever had because I was on my year maternity leave and I was telling her I'm gonna be putting up a website. I'm gonna be starting Instagram. And I was trying to give her some sort of assurance that this is something that, during my year maternity leave, we get a year off in Canada. I think we actually get 18 months now, but it's something that I just wanted to give her the courtesy, the heads up around it, so that she didn't have to think and wonder if I was coming back, because I let her know. Yes, I'm coming back. And honestly, when it came time to make the full-time leap, we actually both left the company in the same month which was very divine as well.
What I found too, around coming out in the workplace as a medium and as somebody who has a spiritual like side business, was again, I was shocked. I should have known being part of an Indigenous health organization that they would be open to spirituality. People in the company started asking me to come do readings for political delegates or different communities that suffered a lot of losses. And I ended up becoming like a little bit of like a go-to when it came to somebody needing like emotional support. And I loved that.
You know that in the workplace I had that trick around telling Skylar on the way down to work, because I really didn't like sitting at my desk all day, and I really didn't like not being with my kids in the morning and not being with them after school. And so I would simply throw the thought to the world of spirit and just declare I'm here to be of service today. If you can bring forward an opportunity for me to be of service, I would be so grateful. Because when we get into this type of work, we really are service-based people. And so, we wanna be put to use. We wanna be of service. And so whenever I would do that, I would be placed in an opportunity to go for a walk with somebody who may be emotionally struggling. As a Virgo sun, I'm like, put me in there.
The last thing I wanted to talk about with the family and friends is the extended family. Now my situation might be a little bit different than others because I'm not incredibly close with my extended family for a lot of different reasons. And I don't have a really big family to be honest with you, but I definitely did experience the most doubt in my path when it came to the aunties, uncles, and that type of stuff.
So, I'm gonna be speaking to you guys, because this will either be your parents or grandparents' generation, where it was very common in society that you find a good place to work. You stay there forever, then you collect your retirement and then you go live your life. And it was actually when I was in the corporate world, and I was on different hiring panels, because one. I was Indigenous, two, I was very intuitive. So I did actually sit on a ton of hiring panels and I remember really starting to get millennials coming in. Now I'm kind of gen X borderline, that in between kind of age range. So I'm considered like a zennial. And I remember interviewing millennials and hiring a lot of millennials that just came out of like PhD programs or master's programs. And sometimes they would only last a week. And they would say things like this just isn't for me. I'm just gonna go pursue something else.
And that was really the first time I had any kind of interaction with people who chose not to stay somewhere because they didn't feel like it. And because they had bigger dreams and they were looking more for like flexibility, et cetera, et cetera. And even before I quit my job, I remember telling my colleagues, I was like, man, these millennials are gonna show us the way. They're really giving us a permission slip to not settle, because I didn't find one that would ever settle. And I'm talking about the younger millennial generation. And so that was a little bit inspiring for me really early on because I was still deconditioning from that mindset in the workplace that I need to pick a career, stick with it, collect the pension plan, then leave.
Going back to my first point around talking with friends or family, you do need to prepare for a variety of different types of conversations around this. And especially if you are not yet firm and confident in your own spirituality and your own abilities and your own gifts it can be a little bit trickier because guaranteed throughout the duration of you coming out and preparing to make this type of leap, you will be met with disappointing reactions. You will be met with experiences of people who may not support you and may not get it. And if you're not standing and your sovereignty behind why you're doing what you're doing, then you might crumble a little bit. And I will say that I have been there too. I have been in positions where I really did crumble because I didn't get validated by people who I was excited to share this to.
And the truth is it's just one of the things that we have to learn on this path that sooner or later, we do get to a point where external validation is just a nice to have. It is not what drives us. It's not what motivates us. It's not what lets us know that we're in alignment or doing the right thing on the right path. We definitely need validation for some time, but the goal and where you will end up eventually is that you will be the only validation that you actually need. But until we get there, we may waver a little bit, depending on the reactions that we get.
I remember the funniest reaction I actually got was the first time I quit my job in 2019, which long, long story you guys already know it. I rescinded my resignation for a series of events that happened. Don't regret it. But I do think that if I did leave, I would've done really well at that time as well. But we had just bought a really big house for my parents to come live with us so that they could retire and they could help us with the kids, help us with the family. And then they get to not have to worry so much about cost of living. And we're really, really happy with that decision. And we'd only been in the house I think for a month. And I was outside with my parents while they were in the front yard. And I said, just so you guys know, I submitted my resignation to work and I'm gonna go full time in my spiritual business. And my dad looked at me and he said, oh my God, we're gonna be homeless.
And if you knew the way that my family communicated with each other, we really use humor for so much. And we always have. And I remember I burst out laughing. As a kid and as a teenager, it didn't matter how much I was screwing up my life or the mistakes that I was making, they always said to me, we just know you're gonna be okay. You always land on your feet. You always end up okay. And my dad always says to me too, he's like, oh, Danielle ran into another pile of money, because since I was a little kid as well, I've been able to really manifest a lot of money. It's it is crazy. Like we grew up not in a very privileged place. We didn't have a lot of money growing up. Won't go too much into details around that.
But I remember being that type of kid who, every Saturday and Sunday, I would be banging on neighbors’ doors saying, what can I do to earn some money today? And people would have me wash their car, return pop bottles, or weed their lawns. I would be just like working and at school, teachers were always on strike as kids. We need to pay teachers more, please. I'm in that camp without a doubt. But I would be cooking up muffins and cupcakes in the morning and getting juice together, and popcorn. And I would be at that picket line selling the teachers snacks while they're picketing.
So I've always been very self-determined, self-reliant and so my parents don't doubt me. They really don't. And I remember my mom coming to me and saying, oh my God, your uncle is like freaking out because you have a government job, like I qualified for tax exemption. I didn't pay any income tax. I qualified for the best pension plan Canada has to offer. The best benefits Canada has to offer. I had it freaking made. They even wanted to pay for me to get a master's degree at that time. It was like the quintessential golden handcuffs. And my mom, her brother-in-law, was like a fire chief. He retired early, him and his wife were able to retire in the early fifties, owned beautiful homes. Like really had it made.
So, you guys know too, going along this line, I think it's important to talk about, I had a lot of different rebuttals for those type of arguments, for people really saying do you understand what you have? Like, how could you leave everything that you have in this time? And I thought about all that too, for a long time. And I had to do a lot of the inner work to be like, okay, I have a pension. And I contribute $300 a month and the company contributes $300 a month to that. So, what's to say I couldn't save $600 on my own. And then I have $600 a month being added to my own savings that I have access to without conditions at any time. Like why is that a bad thing or negative thing? Or why would that be impossible?
And then I started looking at the benefits. And I was like, the truth is I'm Indigenous, I'm First Nations. I qualify for like free benefits for the rest of my life. And so do my kids. So, I had that kind of up my belt, which was also a pleasant surprise, by the way. I didn't expect that. I was fully willing to let go of my massages and chiro and just pay for it on my own. And then it turned out I was covered. So that worked out really well.
And then people were like you have a steady biweekly paycheck. What's to say in my business, as an incorporation, I can't just pay myself biweekly too, which I do. And I actually pay myself weekly now. So, what I used to make, a biweekly pay, I actually pay myself weekly now. I only take a very modest withdrawal from my business and I reinvest the rest into it, by hiring staff, creating ecosystem, giving other people an opportunity to earn while doing something they love. And then also growing Spirit School so that could support more students. There's a ton of things coming up and changing, but I really spend a lot of the money that I make in my business reinvesting in Spirit School and in the business and creating a little bit of an ecosystem. I just absolutely am obsessed with it.
So, all these kind of challenges people had about the go-to, the other one too, was around safety. You get disability, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, I did have disability twice in my corporate career. One time, because I almost died when I was carrying my son, like I literally was in critical care for a week. They thought I had bacterial meningitis. They knew it was neurological. I was really suffering. I literally thought I was gonna die. And so did they. And then I had to go on disability for four months after that, for the rest of my pregnancy.
And then the other time I had to go in disability was when I had my nervous breakdown at that work retreat because I was in the most toxic environment, with the most toxic leadership, and they just, they broke me. They completely broke me. Mission accomplished. You broke me. And I ended up in hospital. I ended up on a heart monitor. I got pulled out of work, doctor's orders, for three months. And let me tell you that getting disability is such a privilege, absolutely. But it's not easy. Like I had to go to a doctor every three weeks to plead my case, to justify the extension, to get paid for the paperwork, to submit the paperwork and then wait weeks for a decision. And then have to follow up constantly. Are you guys gonna give me 40% of my pay? It hardly felt like a privilege. It actually added to the stress of why I was on leave in the first place. And I hated it. And then there's also the stigma within the corporate place around being on disability, which is an added stress as well. So that to me was not necessarily a huge perk.
And what I did experience when I did lean into full-time entrepreneurship was when my cat died, and I took a month of bereavement, the way that I had like unintentionally structured my business actually had money continuously coming in for a whole month while I had to take that time away to bereave. And I didn't lose any clients. I didn't lose any income. And it actually showed me, I was like, wow, I don't know how that worked out. And I really experimented with it. Like, how did that happen? How did I get so supported while I took time to grieve? All the students understood, my membership understood, my clients understood, and I still made the exact same amount of money. Like I was really trying to wrap my head around how that happened.
And then moving forward a year and a half, when my brother almost died in March, he felt very ill, and he did have the spinal meningitis, bacterial meningitis, and the doctors called us to say, he wasn't gonna make it. They're like the surgery was a failure. You gotta come say goodbye. He literally has a 3% chance to make it through the night. And I remember having to call on my team saying, I need to cancel everything. I need to go be with my brother. He survived the night and I was by his side every day. I dropped the kids off at school. I drove a hundred kilometers to the hospital and I sat with beside him all day while he was in a coma. And I got to spend three weeks every single day by his side. And I was supported in my business. I had 200 clients at the time. They all understood because they're human. They get it.
Do you think my workplace would've supported that? No. We don't get that kind of compassion time. I would not have been supported. I know that, even with the most supportive boss, there are policies in place. There are structures in place that would keep me from being able to be with one of my closest relations while they were sick. And I even had people say that to me, when I was posting about that on Facebook and Instagram. They would be like, wow, you're so lucky you get to be with them. That wasn't how I was able to with my mom or I was able to with my dad. I'm like, I know. This is one of the blessings of entrepreneurship. And then I had nobody to answer to other than me. And then guess what, if clients were mad and students were upset and they felt ripped off and they left, I think that's good for everyone, right? We're not a good fit because the people who are attracted to work with me are accepting and understanding of the human experience, not just the spiritual experience as well.
My guides are here right now, by the way, they're really happy I'm talking about this. So people saying that having your nine to five is more safe or secure than having your own thing, I'm here to tell you that the evidence that I have collected for myself in two and a half years of being full time is that is absolutely not the case. So I believe that we have been bought and sold a story that we are all just continuously regurgitating without experimenting or seeing what lays on the other side of it.
I didn't have that evidence when I first started talking about going full time and talking about doing this career on my own. But what I did do back then was I started to collect my own evidence. And I mentioned this in the last episode, I immersed myself in listening to stories of people who did career pivots and succeeded, of people who went full time in their spiritual businesses. There wasn't a whole lot, which is also how come I wanted to dedicate my podcast a little bit to talking about the business side of spiritual stuff, because I don't know any mediumship teachers I have ever really had that talked about like pricing or earning money or like money wounds. And so, I'm really passionate about sharing this side as well. But I really took it upon myself to really start building evidence for myself that this was a path worth pursuing.
So, the truth of the matter is too, when we have to manage disappointing reactions, when we energetically match the people who are not meeting us where we were hoping that they would meet us, and it can crumble us, we have to learn to become really responsible for our own energetic experiences. We don't have to meet them in that space. We can let them live in that space because they're showing up in that way because of their lived experience in this life. Which we can't discredit, which we can't invalidate in any way. The reason why they are showing up in that way is because their own lived experience that they are projecting on to us.
And so you have to get very clear on why you wanna make this leap. Why you wanna do this is going to be your superpower when you are coming out of your spiritual bubble a little bit and inviting other people in with you. That is key here. This is your homework. You have a couple pieces of homework. Okay. The one is gonna be, why do you wanna do this? Okay? I know that when I talked to my husband and I would tell him I help so many people and the world needs this, he could not get on board. That was not a casing point that made him believe in what I did. He actually needed more logic. He's a Capricorn. So, I love my Capricorns if you don't know, I have so many Capricorns in my life and I adore every single one of 'em. So, I know with my Capricorn, I needed to come up in logic. I was like, okay, here's a spreadsheet. This is the potential. If I charge this much and I do this many readings like this is how much I can make. It's actually double what I used to make in corporate. And I'm actually only working nine hours a week. And that really helped with him.
So I got behind the why, financially why I wanted to do this. But then for me, the real, why as I went through the layers of my why was, in the end of it, I have never lived a life where I've been able to drop my kids off at school and pick them up. I have never been able to serve them breakfast because I'm out of the house at 6:00 AM before anyone else in the house wakes up. I left the house at 6:00 AM and I didn't get home with the kids until 4 35. So, Monday to Friday, I only got to see my kids from five till seven o'clock at night. You can't tell me that's how we're supposed to live in this world. That is not a life right. That is not the quality of life in which I felt good living. And so when it came time to talk to bosses and parents and extended family, my why was like, I wanna live a life that I get to walk my kids to school and pick them up and that I get to spend more time with them than just dinner, bath, and bed. And if you try to question that to me, it's impossible. I am so dead set on that why. And that's why when you work with me, my classes are Monday to Friday during school hours. You want a reading with me? My reading sessions are during school hours. You want mentorship with me? They're during school hours.
And yeah, I could probably be accessing a whole other set of audience that is only available on weekends and evenings, but then I'm sacrificing my quality of life, which is not fair for me. And I'm the matriarch of this family. And so it's my responsibility to make sure that I am doing and living a life that benefits everyone, right? When the family is centered around someone, and my parents are gonna listen to this and just fucking roll their eyes, cause they're like, oh, there's Danielle, all high up on herself. But it's true. It's very true. My kids, my husband, everyone responds to me. And I can recognize that we are a matriarchal family. And so, the quality of life is so important.
My children are number one. Absolutely number one. Which takes me to the other part of my why, which is iron clad and indestructible. I hope my kids don't enter the workforce. My hope is that my kids will finish high school and have an idea of something that they wanna launch on their own. And I am currently investing in that. Because one, she's a Scorpio. She ain't listening to no one. I'm like queen, you need to find a job that you work for yourself because yeah. I just, I'm raising kids who are not wallflowers. I want them to have strong opinions. I want them to feel comfortable voicing their opinions. I want them to also live within a structure, but not completely like melt into that structure. I want them to have sovereignty and agency and self identity.
And so, I want to show my children what it looks like to pursue your passion and your dreams. I need them to see what that looks like. I'm an experiential teacher. The best way to show someone how to do things is by doing it, is demonstrating it. So, I am literally talking to my kids every day. Guess what mommy did today. Guess what I got to do today. And my daughter will come into the minivan when I pick her up from school, I rock a minivan, and she says oh mom, like how many people did you get to help today? Or even once in a while, she'll say like, how much money did you make today? Because when I'm launching a program and I have like really big days, I'll get so excited and I'll just celebrate and I'll be like, guess how much money mommy made today? And they'll celebrate with me and I get to include the family with that and get excited about it.
Yes, I am investing every single month into RESPs, which is a education fund for children for the structured societal education system. If they do want to pursue that, I will have some money set aside, but I'm also setting aside money for entrepreneurship dreams. With the education savings, I picked one that basically, if they choose not to go to college or university, I get that money rolled into my retirement savings plan. So, it's not a loss for me, but I also am putting aside money for them, their birthday money, everything that they get, however they're making money that's not Robux. My daughter earns Robux every week as chores. But I'm setting it aside so that if they have an idea for a business that they wanna launch out of high school, I will have a little bit of an investment there for them so that they can take a chance on that.
I also celebrate failures in my household. I do not fear failure in any way. I fear success more than anything, but I think that the only way we are truly innovating in our lives is by trying something out and course correcting as we go and not seeing things as that failure. So that's my other why is I wanna be a role model for my children so that they can have a living example of somebody in their life that chases their dreams continuously and has it work out beautifully. So, first assignment, getting clear on your why. And you'll be able to feel it because it will ignite your spirit. You will literally light up when you land the why.
The next thing you wanna do is come up with an elevator pitch of some kind, and you're gonna need a couple variations of it. In the workplace for example, I gave six weeks notice for my resignation because I'd been there for eight years. I had a lot of big projects. I adored my boss, so I wanted to do her a solid. So, I gave six weeks notice and people started finding out and they would be like, oh, what are you gonna go do? And I'm like actually I'm a medium, and I've been doing my business on the side since 2017, so I'm just going full time into it. And they would always say, oh, you talk to dead people? And my response is always, I think that was like a little bit of a shock factor for them, that response. And it got them off of their kind of like societal narrative that. Has been conditioned in. And then same with no, they are much more alive than we are. And that would always be the elevator pitch. That's it. It was that simple. And then people usually had a bit more questions.
When I kind of go out and people are like, oh, what do you do? That changes all the time, to be honest with you, because sometimes I'm really heavy into my end-of-life doula work, and sometimes I might say, oh, I do like end-of-life doula work. Or sometimes I'll be like, oh, I'm a spiritual mentor, or sometimes I'll say I'm a medium. Sometimes I'll just say I'm a teacher. Like I have a couple different ways of describing what I do and my intuition calls forward, which variation of my elevator pitch makes the most sense in that moment and what I can really stand behind.
So elevator pitch is just basically can you describe within 20 seconds what it is that you're doing? And it is actually really good to think about some of those maybe challenging beliefs I talked about earlier that you may be presented with, that you might have a couple counters for. But one of the tricks that I have to say, that I've learned the real hard way is that when you're preparing the elevator pitch or you're preparing the responses to people who may not be meeting your expectations with their reactions, disappointing a little bit, practice out loud. Okay. Because things sound like really good in our head. And then we go to say them out loud and it's like, do I know English? Do I even know this language? So please do practice out loud because one, it adds more power to it. Two, it just sounds so different in your head. So in your car, whatever you wanna do, just practice, okay.
So, get clear on your, why your elevator pitch and the final thing I really wanted to share, which I have an exciting download for you guys. If you go into the show notes, you can download a worksheet that I have around this. And this is more manifesting. And it was actually a dead shock surprise to me that in 2020, I was going through some old books because I was rearranging my room. I was having my room designed as like a stage set, because this is my office now. And I was going through old journals because I keep all my journals, all my development journals. I can't throw these things away. So, I keep 'em all. And I look back at them often, because it also shows me how far I've come. And I opened up one of my old 2018 Danielle Laport journals, and I opened it up and at the top of the page, it said my dream week. And I basically laid out my dream week and I started crying, my friends, because the life I had in 2020, the schedule I had was almost identical to what I dreamed up in 2018.
So, in 2018 I had some sort of know-how, I didn't even remember I did this, to be like, oh, if I went full time, so obviously I was thinking about it in 2018, what would I want my week to look like? Okay, I'd wake up, I'd walk the kids to school. I'd do a little bit of exercise. I would get beautiful. I would do a couple readings. I would go get the kids. How simple of a dream is that? And I even indicated how much money I would make that day, how I would feel that day. And then two years later, it was actually about 28 months later, I find that dream week sheet and I realize I am literally living that schedule, almost to a T except I don't do yoga. Yoga was on there. I'm like, yeah, I'm still not doing yoga but I replaced it with dog walks. And different things.
Holy the power of intentionality about getting crystal clear on how you do want to live. Because what we end up doing when we feel very unsatisfied in our life is we try to pump ourselves up by immersing ourselves in why we don't wanna be here and why we don't wanna do this thing. A real superpower is instead flipping it and getting clear on what we actually do want, and how we really do want to do things.
So this is actually something I did in the Spirit School Collective, my membership, last summer. We did a whole manifesting workshop and I shared this tool and this technique, and I had my designer Christie Pike of SoulFlow Branding, one of my besties, design. I'm gonna actually ask her to put her company name at the bottom, because people are always asking how I create all my things. I'm like, it's all her baby. I send her a text. I'm like, can you do up something that's like this? And she does it all for me.
So if you go to the link in the show notes, you can download the Dream Week manifesting worksheet for people to get really clear on how they wanna actually live their life, that flip side, and see what happens. I am a set it and forget it manifester so I just need to mark it down, put it away, and then just trust that it happens. Some people really like to focus on it. I find I am just too controlling and I get drained and exhausted. I remember the first time I watched The Secret and I tried to do what The Secret did. I was so exhausted in one day. I was like, I can't do it like this. I'm tired. I'm like, I don't wanna think this much. So I'm a set it and forget it manifester. So do the worksheet. Put it away in a journal that you might find in a couple years, and maybe you'll get to have a really incredible experience like I had too.
So, get clear on the life you wanna live, why you wanna live it, how you're gonna express how you wanna live it. Start thinking about some of these conversations. Start getting yourself to a place, because I can't tell you in one podcast episode how to do this, because you all come from very different lived experiences. But starting to let people into your spiritual space and your spiritual bubble. It is very sacred and you, I think, will be more surprised than not how many people are like ready to be let in.
And so hopefully some of the tips coming up for this podcast episode and some of the stories really help and support you get clearer on potentially making this transition. And keep in mind, I did this dream week, and I actually even wrote it as that, my dream week, in 2018, and I forgot all about it. And this is the way that energetics support us on our path. This is exactly a good example of energetics. I put it out there, I let it rest, do its thing, and within 28 months I was actually living my dream life, my dream week.
So yeah, this was fun. Hopefully you guys enjoy this. Hopefully you find it helpful and supportive. Let me know, share it on Instagram, tagging me @squamishmedium. I always love that. Let me know how it's impacted you. Download that sheet.
And then just one thing I wanted to make note of before I let you guys go. You guys know I have my membership. I talk about it a little bit more now on the podcast. It's doing very well. I've got 94 Queens in there. I'm loving every second of it. But we are switching to move Spirit School off of social media. I am obsessed with building a brand and a company that is not reliant on social media giants. Anyone who's in my world knows I've talked about this quite a bit in the past year and a half, but I am done playing with the social media giants pay to play games, the psychological games. I'm just like, I'm not passionate about being on Facebook. And so, I've been working really hard this year to build a platform for Spirit School that is off social media. So, it's like a safe space because your aunties and uncles and cousins and colleagues and friends and sisters and parents will not see your posts of any kind.
And we're actually gonna be having a free community as part of Spirit School as well, if you're not ready to invest in the workshops. The demonstrations with me and like the classes and daily questions, that kind of stuff. If you just want a space to hang out, talk about spiritual things, talk about podcast episodes. I'll be in there a little bit too. My team will definitely be in there quite a bit.
But we are gonna be opening up a free off social media community for Spirit School. And you're all welcome to come. It'll be opening July 1st, and then we're actually gonna be launching the Spirit School space with a free five-day Spirit Guide Challenge. So I'm gonna be coming on live every day in the community, doing a guided visualization, a little bit of a teaching and a homework assignment on how you can get closer and feel more connected to your spirit guides, because there as close as they're ever gonna get. It's just around your awareness of them. So, it's gonna be a whole week of building your awareness around your spirit guides as a way to kick off this free community and space.
I've never had a free community. I think I actually had one for a month and it's a lot of work. And so, I just didn't have the time to invest in it. I had my membership and it was just too hard to divide, but I have a really good team in place now, so I can do all the things. So I can do all the things.
So, the new Spirit School home will house the free community, the membership, my programs, the challenges that I'll be doing, my mediumship masterminds. It's gonna be an all-in-one platform that is completely off social media. So if you're also fascinated about building an off social media business, just watch me, okay. Because this is my latest obsession. I'm not gonna get rid of Instagram. I will be off of Facebook completely by probably the end of the year. Hopefully sooner. I'm actually hoping by September. But I will still be on Instagram. I'm obsessed with TikTok, but I don't create on there. So, you'll really just be able to find me on Instagram and in the free community or the paid membership and my programs, et cetera, et cetera. But I'm really excited.
So listen to the July Spirit Messages. I'll have a link to join the community in those show notes. I'll also have it in my newsletter. So, sign up for my newsletter, if you like, it's totally up to you. And yeah, we're gonna be having a free community space so we can connect in even more. Just so you know, too, this podcast is a perfect other example of how I'm building a brand and business off social media, by the way. Okay. There you go. Two business tips there too. Love you guys. Thanks for listening. And we'll chat next time.