I had just moved into the new spot. There was still plenty to do. And for those few minutes on the bike, I got to enjoy where we live.

That ride is part of the life I want here. And when Carolina and I sit down to plan the business, it’s easy to spend the whole conversation on who we want to serve, what we want to offer, and how much we want to bring in revenue-wise.

I want to be able to get on the bike at 6:30am without feeling like I’m already behind on work.

When Carolina and I talk about taking on a project or opening another group, we put the calls on the calendar and count the hours it’ll take to serve people well. That’s the week we’re saying yes to.

Sometimes you look at that week and think, yes, I’d love to do more of this. Sometimes you see a change you could make before you say yes.

That’s part of what we mean by building a Sacred Business. The work matters. The money matters. And the person who will have to inhabit those decisions matters, too.

Over the next few weeks, Carolina and I are going to share more about how we make those decisions and how we help clients make theirs. We’ll get into offers, visibility, money, and what comes up inside us when it’s time to act.

For today, think about an ordinary day you’d like to have more often. What happens during that day? Who do you get to spend time with? What part of your work belongs in it?

Then look at one business decision you’re making right now. What would you choose if you took that day into account?

Who we’re celebrating

took a moment from our conversation with Martha Beck and shared what stayed with her. We loved seeing what she heard and what she chose to carry into her week.

Claire is also bringing Let’s Begin into the world. It’s a month of private coaching and trip design for women who want to take the trip they’ve been putting off. She helps you get clear on why you want to go, shape a trip around what you want to experience, and make the bookings. We love that the adventure starts with a choice you make for yourself, long before you pack a bag.

Happenings

We’re thinking about teaching the Offer Garden

Maybe you already have a way of working with clients that people value. And now you’re wondering what to build next. A workshop? A small group? A way for past clients to keep working with you?

Carolina and I have been mapping how our own offers fit together and what they can share. We’re calling it the Offer Garden, and we’re thinking about teaching a live workshop where you can map yours.

You’d bring the work you already do well. We’d look at where people can begin, what they might need next, and what you can build from what you already have. The aim is to leave knowing which offer deserves your attention and which ideas can wait.

Would that be useful to you? Reply GARDEN. If we run it, we’ll send you the details.

From this past week

• Our conversation with Martha Beck

• What If the Life You Want Still Only Happens on Your Days Off?

• How a Retreat Filled in Two Days Once We Reached Out to the People We Thought We’d Already Reached

Before You Say Yes …

Put the calls on the calendar and count the hours it’ll take to serve people well. That’s the week you’re saying yes to.

With love,
Phil & Carolina

I grew up as this lost person who had no idea what I wanted to do when I grew up. As the time to choose a university got closer, that feeling of being lost and confused only increased. But now I was running out of time, according to what society expects, and I needed to choose something. I chose business management, because it felt generic enough for someone who had no clarity about her own passions and desires.

As I developed my career, a deep sense of dissatisfaction kept growing, and more and more questions came into my head. Is this it? Isn’t there any other way to live life? Why do I spend most of my precious hours doing something I don’t like?

Fast forward, I re-created a business that felt more aligned with myself, but still not aligned with the life I wanted. And the questions kept growing in my mind. I think the gift of all of that was my ability to remain curious and not accept the status quo as a final sentence.

People around me had businesses and careers that didn’t really contribute to a day-to-day they loved. It was more like, what do I do with the time I’m not working? Because while I’m working, I don’t get to choose much.

In my incessant wonder about life and my endless questions, I found my own way to create something that was truly aligned with what my heart wanted and how I wanted to experience life.

And out of all those questions, dissatisfactions and curiosity, Sacred Business was born.

Not as a goal to have an amazing business, but as a means to have an amazing life.

Read more

Her father was a professor. She was good at school. So she kept going to school, with the reasonable expectation that she would eventually spend her life teaching in one.

Then she discovered that she loved teaching sociology when it helped her students understand their own lives. Repeating the same theories without applying them was another matter. She got bored.

Meanwhile, she had three young children, an autoimmune disease, and a life that made a standard career difficult to sustain.

“The first thing was that my body and my emotions would not allow me to have the career I had planned.”

That was where we began our conversation with Martha on Sacred Business Stories. Before the books and the work so many people know her for, there was a person trying to find a way of working she could actually live with.

She left academia, then found a part-time teaching position at Thunderbird, a graduate school of international management. There, she designed a course on career development and began working more directly with her students’ lives.

Then her students started hiring her outside class, just to talk.

“I started coaching. I didn’t know it was called coaching. I didn’t know anybody else was doing it.”

She called it life design.

I loved the simplicity of that beginning. She followed the part of teaching that mattered to her, and people began asking for more of it. The work took shape through those encounters.

Carolina recognized her own experience in that story. She had been able to get jobs and make more money, but kept finding herself unhappy with the work. From the outside, she was becoming more successful. Inside, she was asking what was wrong with her.

That question comes up often in our work. Capable people can spend years trying to become better at tolerating a form of success that asks too much of them.

Martha’s story opens another possibility: perhaps the way you work needs to change.

Then we got into the question that makes that possibility difficult to act on.

How do you trust yourself when the work you want to do is also frightening?

Martha offered an image. You’re standing on a high dive on a hot day. Below you is a beautiful pool of cool, clear water. You want to jump, and you’re scared.

Now put yourself on the same diving board, but fill the pool with foul-smelling sludge.

You’re scared again. This time, you also have a strong sense that you do not want to go there.

Those experiences can get bundled together under the same word: fear. Learning to feel the difference matters.

I think about this when someone is preparing to share an offer they care about. There can be a wish to do the work and a very understandable reluctance to be seen asking for it. The discomfort alone doesn’t tell us whether the direction is right.

We have to listen more closely.

I asked Martha whether any of this still happens to her. It’s easy to hear someone speak with that much clarity and assume they’ve graduated from the experience they’re describing.

“I am about as terrified of everything as anyone I’ve ever met.”

She said that was the reason she had spent so much time discovering what helped.

One of her suggestions was almost disarmingly ordinary that it caught me off guard. Think about how you would approach a frightened puppy. You would get lower, soften your voice, and offer reassurance. You would know instinctively that shouting at it to stop being afraid would accomplish very little.

Then turn some of that care toward yourself.

A warm drink. Something comfortable around your shoulders. A gentler way of speaking to yourself while you work out what comes next.

There was a lot of warmth in how she described this. She was sharing something she still uses.

But the part I most wanted to stay with came when we talked about what happens after you act.

Someone in the chat asked about trying to move toward a truer path while bills, family expectations, and the pressure to be practical keep pulling you back. What if the direction keeps failing? Could that be a sign that it’s wrong?

Martha challenged the interpretation.

She described going through many versions of her own business, repeatedly noticing what wasn’t working and changing it. A disappointing result called for a closer look at the approach. It didn’t automatically erase the joy that had brought her to the work.

I asked about a version of this we see with clients. Someone gets clear about what they want to offer, has a conversation, hears one no, and immediately begins questioning the whole thing.

Martha compared it to writing code.

You write a program as well as you can. Then you run it and discover what needs fixing. You change it, run it again, and learn more about the circumstances it has to work in.

That is the debugging period.

“Don’t let go of your joy. Find a new way forward.”

That distinction is useful enough to keep beside your desk.

An invitation can need clearer language. You may be speaking to someone who doesn’t need what you offer, or asking them to take a step they don’t yet understand. Those are things you can investigate.

If every no becomes a verdict on whether you should be doing the work at all, it becomes very hard to stay long enough to learn.

, who joined us live, shared the reminder she was taking with her:

“The Universe communicates in/through JOY.”

Thank you for being there, Claire. I love that you pulled this out. It brings us back to the question Martha kept asking: where does the joy still call you forward, even while you’re figuring out what needs to change?

There was another part of Martha’s story that kept this conversation grounded.

When someone asked about children, healthcare, and practical responsibilities, she returned to that part-time teaching job. It had helped her family survive financially and given her some healthcare. It also became the place where her new work began.

Following what mattered to her still involved supporting the life she had.

I spent ten years dealing with chronic illness, and many of the questions behind Sacred Business Flow came from trying to find a way to create that honored a different pace.

How could the business support my life? What could I build without repeatedly exhausting myself to sustain it?

Those questions required practical answers. They still do.

Another member of our community, recorded a short video afterward. What I loved was that she was noticing her own embodied joy as she spoke, especially around conversations about human transformation and living from your true values.

She also made a distinction I appreciated. Listening for joy doesn’t require you to quit your job. You can begin by getting quiet enough to hear what matters to you, then let that understanding inform small decisions.

Thank you for joining us and sharing this reflection. There’s something lovely about seeing a conversation continue in someone’s own words, connected to their own life.

Near the end, Martha gave us a current example of her own process. She had been trying to write a book about the changes she sees happening in consciousness and business. She kept taking notes and writing chapters, but the form wasn’t working.

She was grateful for traditional publishing. It had served her well. Yet this particular work wanted a different way of reaching people.

Then her partner introduced her to .

Here was a place where she could share a continuing stream of ideas and let people encounter them at different moments. She described walking around saying “Substack” to herself, delighted by the possibility.

Even after writing books for years, she was still discovering what form the next expression of her work wanted to take.

If there’s something you care about that hasn’t found its footing yet, I’d invite you to bring one question to it:

What needs adjusting so I can give this a fair chance?

You might need a clearer offer or a more direct invitation. You might need support staying with the discomfort long enough to learn from the response.

Choose one small adjustment you can test. Let the next encounter teach you something.

Watch the full replay above. Martha’s answer about the first no is powerful.

Thank you , , , , , and many others for tuning into this episode of Sacred Business Stories with and !

We’d been promoting it for about two weeks. A whole sequence of emails had gone out, and with a couple of days left, there were still a handful of spaces available.

So we looked at who we hadn’t heard from.

Past clients. People who’d come to his workshops. Others who already knew his work and seemed likely to be interested.

Around a hundred of them hadn’t opened any of the emails.

I suggested he reach out personally and let them know he’d thought of them. Make sure they’d received the information.

Within about 48 hours, the retreat filled.

Some of the people he contacted checked their email and discovered the messages had been going into their promotions folder. They hadn’t known the retreat was happening. They were grateful he’d reached out.

I told this story on a coaching call last week because we were talking about personal invitations and the point where they start to feel like too much.

It’s easy to look at a launch like that and think: I’ve already sent ten emails. Surely reaching out again would be bothering people.

But sending a message and someone receiving it are two different things.

Read more

One of my favorite things Phil says is: “Not now doesn’t mean not ever.” It took me a while to really hear it. What helped was making peace with choosing one thing. I wasn’t missing out on anything. And there was no way I could get it wrong.

If you’re like me, you probably have many gifts, many passions, and a great ability to come up with amazing new ideas every day. I see this as a strength. But it also worked against me and kept my energy scattered.

When we first started working together, because of the nature of my work, it was very hard for me to choose one direction. I can help so many people in so many different ways, and focusing on one thing felt like excluding people.

Over time, I learned that focus is power. It wasn’t about excluding anyone. It was about having one thing to test against life, and improving from there.

Choosing gave me two things I didn’t expect.

The first was confidence. My ability to explain what I do grew exponentially, and with it, my confidence when talking about my work. I started to see that my first clear offer wasn’t a life sentence. It was the first step to having a real business.

The second was the process of creating it. For the first time, I gave myself permission to say out loud what I really liked and what brought me joy, instead of just doing whatever people said they needed.

That might sound selfish. It isn’t.

When my offer was built at the intersection of my gifts, what people needed, and what brought me the most joy, I had more energy to keep going.

That’s very different from saying yes to everyone who came my way just because I could help.

Headaches, yes. Divorce, yes. A new business, yes. Trouble with the kids, yes. A hard time losing weight, yes.

When we talk to everybody, we talk to nobody. And our energy goes everywhere except where it wants to grow.

One clear direction, connected to what you truly love, gathers energy instead of spending it.

And there’s a delicious moment when you think: Oh wow, I’m allowed to make good money this way?!

Yes. Making money was never supposed to cost you your joy.

In the past, I had helped many people with health situations. I was qualified. But my joy wasn’t there. My joy was in supporting people to find clarity about what they truly want for their lives.

My first clear offer pointed toward what I really wanted. How it grew into the business I have today was a co-creation with life.

Often, what blocks clarity is the fear of missing out and the fear of making the wrong decision. As if you need to get it right or you’ll lose your chance.

I’d love to offer you another way to see it: clarity comes as you walk. And there’s already a bit of it inside you as a starting point.

Many people stay confused for years because they haven’t given themselves permission to choose.

When you drop into your heart, there’s a clue waiting before you even take the first step. The one simple offer you’re trying to create is that first assumption. It’s there to build momentum.

Once it’s out in the world, life starts giving you clear feedback too.

And clarity keeps growing as you test your ideas in the real world.

After that first assumption, the worst place to be is in your head, because that’s the place of endless refinement. The heart gives you a glimpse of what is. Life helps you shape it.

You can’t miss out on your own evolution. Your business is a tool for your own growth, so trust that what you choose now is just the foundation for more of you to come online.

fBut we don’t come online all at once. Your Sacred Business has its own way of inviting more of your gifts into play, one at a time.

One clear offer is not the end of your story. It’s where more of you begins.

With love,

Carolina

P.S. If you could choose one thing, just for now, what would it be? Reply and tell me. I’d love to hear it.

Not sure which one thing to choose? The Harmony Map is a good place to start. It shows you where your energy naturally flows, and where it gets scattered.

Take the Harmony Map

Happenings

Moving week

We got back from our retreat straight into moving week. Sometimes life happens in ways we wish we had made more space for, but we can’t always.

So I’m keeping this one light, as I balance my normal routine and business with everything a move asks of us.

We’ve been looking for more nature and quiet for quite some time, exploring different places. Then we found one, like magic, and we couldn’t say no.

You know when you have a list of desires, everyone tells you it’ll be very hard to find, and then you find something with everything on your list and more? Yeah. That’s where we’re moving.

I’m so excited to reorganize my routine in this new space.

For now, I’d love for you to enjoy the view with us in this picture.

I’m not there as I write. But as I share it, I take a deep breath in, and a very slow breath out. A reminder that in nature, nothing rushes, and yet everything gets done.

Memorable Quote by Steve Jobs

People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas.

That took some choosing.

Everything that had piled up while I was gone seemed to have an opinion about when I should start and how fast I should move.

The backlog is very good at impersonating a boss.

I started with spiritual practice at 5, then a walk. At 9, I reviewed what needed my attention. There was plenty to do, and I wanted to choose where to begin.

At 9:59, I had sixteen minutes of breathwork scheduled before my first session.

An actual appointment on the calendar. Because I know how easily “I’ll make time for that” becomes the thing I never get to.

We also paused a live series while we rethink its timing. The hour it would have taken took on a different name on the calendar:

Spaciousness.

That choice feels more revealing to me than the breathwork.

A live series has a purpose. People might come. It could lead to conversations, connections, business. There are good reasons to keep doing it.

And we chose to leave the hour open.

I can talk all day about building a business that supports my life. These are the decisions where I get confronted with whether I truly mean it.

I’m practicing letting being have more of a say in how I work. Giving myself enough space to notice what needs my attention before I commit the whole day.

I find doing easier. There’s a task, a next step, a small satisfaction in getting through it. Leaving an hour open brings me into contact with how quickly I want to fill it.

Of course, some weeks ask more of us. Launches happen. Deadlines matter. A 9 a.m. start isn’t a rule I’m suggesting or handing anyone.

What mattered was coming back from the retreat and making a choice about the rhythm I wanted to return to.

A week away can help you feel what you’ve been missing. Then Monday arrives, and that insight needs somewhere to live.

For me, this Monday, it had sixteen minutes at 9:59.

When you come back from rest, what’s the first thing you give up to catch up?

Try giving it a place on next week’s calendar before the inbox gets a vote.

With Love,
Phil

But one keeps you a victim of your life, and the other puts you in the creator’s seat.

Some time ago I posted a note about missing the gym for a whole week and feeling zero guilt. I want to explore this a little deeper, because guilt has its gifts, just like any other emotion, and there was a very specific reason I said zero guilt.

And of course I’ll relate it to business, because everything is connected.

That post was inspired by our scoreboard call in the Your First Yes cohort. This is a small group of people who decided they are done struggling with a lack of clarity and with not knowing how to explain what they do. They are ready for their business to grow, and they know that if they keep doing what they’ve been doing, it won’t take them there.

As the saying goes, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Once a week, we meet to track their progress. It’s a structured process that helps them, and us, see where the real issue is, so we can address the root cause instead of overbooking ourselves with actions that won’t take us anywhere.

Why am I telling you this?

Because on this call, if someone took no action on one of the things we measure, it’s extremely important that they write 0. Leaving it blank won’t do.

When I said I felt zero guilt about missing the gym, it was because it was a conscious choice. I chose not to go. It wasn’t that life happened and the gym slipped because I couldn’t prioritize myself.

But notice how often this happens to you. You say you want to do something. It’s in your schedule. And you don’t do it. It slips out of your control because life happened to you.

In all the go, go, go, you didn’t even realize you had a choice. Again, you missed the gym. You missed the newsletter you said you would write. You missed the conversations you said you would have.

Writing a 0 on the scoreboard puts you in the creator’s seat. Leaving it blank, without even knowing why you didn’t do it, keeps you operating as a victim: life happens and you have no choice.

Which means you are constantly operating from old, unhelpful patterns.

I’ve had weeks when I didn’t go to the gym and I did feel guilty. And I let myself feel it. It felt awful.

My shoulders collapsed, and my thought was, here I am again, not making my health a priority. I looked back on my week and didn’t even know why I hadn’t gone. It just happened that way.

It happens to all of us.

And then we avoid the guilt, because so many spiritual and positive teachings tell us that if you didn’t do it, it wasn’t meant to be, or that we should be nice and kind to ourselves.

Guilt doesn’t feel kind or nice, so we don’t let ourselves feel it.

And we keep ourselves from its gift: change.

When you truly feel guilt, you learn. You don’t let your mind come up with an excuse to justify the unconscious choice. Instead, you change your actions, so you don’t have to feel it again.

The next time, maybe you’ll push yourself to go to the gym, because not going belongs to an old version of you that no longer fits your dreams. Or maybe you’ll skip it because you need rest, and you’ll know exactly why.

Either way, when you write 0 on the scoreboard instead of leaving it empty, it’s because you chose it, not because life chose for you.

The week after, I went back to my routine and showed up to the gym more than I said I would.

Guilt isn’t meant to be carried forward in life. It’s meant to be felt deeply, so that next time you choose consciously what you want instead of letting the unconscious choose for you.

Every time you don’t do what you said you would because life happened, you are letting your past choose. And every time your past chooses, you are not moving toward the goals and desires you have.

I am all about being kind and nice to myself, but that can’t rob me of the gift of negative emotions.

For me, being kind sounds like this: okay, I didn’t have the conversations I said I would. I’m aware this isn’t helping my business or the life I want to manifest. So the most loving thing I can do now is show up for myself better, instead of letting the pattern swallow my possibilities.

Sometimes the most loving thing you can do for yourself is to feel the guilt, process it completely, and choose differently next time.

When you do that, the zeros on your scoreboard will carry rich information. You’ll see your gaps. Maybe you need to develop a skill, maybe expand your network, or maybe you just need to do the thing that makes you extremely uncomfortable.

But you’ll only learn this when you consciously choose 0. Then guilt won’t be there.

Instead, you’ll start getting to know yourself better, and clarity will emerge: why you’re not getting the results you want, and where to double down because something is working really well.

With love,

Carolina

Your blanks have a pattern. The free Harmony Map helps you see it.

Take the Harmony Map

Who we’re celebrating:

This week I’m celebrating of Everyday Unconventional, our auction winner.

Amanda spent 15 years working on private yachts and now lives part of the year in an RV. She guides conventional achievers who crave unconventional lives, and she does it as a guide, not a guru.

She doesn’t teach people to copy her choices; she helps them hear their own.

Amanda, thank you for having the courage to share your gifts with the world.

I feel honored to support your journey.

Happenings

Offline, but connected

This upcoming week, we’ll be taking the week off to attend a retreat with a teacher who deeply inspires our philosophy and how we build our business. His whole premise is that only love is real, and everything that is happening, or not happening, in our lives is there to help us awaken to this truth.

From his teachings, I keep learning to love myself more. And love doesn’t always mean comfort. It’s quite the opposite. Love and kindness toward ourselves can mean doing what we don’t want to do, because it’s more aligned with the version of ourselves that is awakening, the one that came here to thrive and create, not to suffer and live a mediocre life.

Love and courage walk hand in hand. When our choices are made from fear, they keep us at a distance from the truth that only love is real.

I’m extremely excited.

We attended his retreat last year and it was a gift. Having had a year to practice the insights I received there, it feels just perfect to engage with him again as this new version of myself. And I’m ready for more uncomfortable actions, which are already on my horizon.

I’ll be connecting with you from my heart, holding our readers and clients in the energy of this container. Because yes, only love is real, and sometimes it causes pain, just to break our hearts open and let more light in.

You’ll probably see less of us on Substack, but we’ll remain connected. And I know you’ll receive the energy.

Memorable Quote by Carl Jung

Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.

Yesterday, we opened our auction for one private spot: 90 days to choose your offer, build it, price it, and bring it to real buyers.

Business strategy with me. Inner work with Carolina. Private support as you put it into practice.

You don’t need a finished offer. Choosing what to build is where we start.

This is for you if you have skills, experience, and meaningful work to offer, but need help turning it into something people understand and buy.

Then the bidding started.

Then our friends started adding their own work to the prize.

So if you checked in yesterday and thought you knew what was included…

We have some catching up to do.

Open the bidding note ...

Check the latest bids there, then leave yours in its comments.

First, what you’re actually bidding for

The private work is the heart of this.

Over 90 days, we help you:

• Choose and shape your offer in a 90-minute Offer Roadmapping session with me.

• Work through the fear and self-doubt that show up as you act, with three private calls with Carolina.

• Put your offer into words you’d actually use, with your core offer invitation document.

• Build two supporting assets with us, such as invitation emails, an About page, or a pillar post.

• Bring the offer to potential buyers, with private support for conversations, invitations, follow-up, and refinement.

You also have a private thread with us throughout the 90 days for questions, drafts, decisions, and course corrections.

Sometimes the offer needs work. Sometimes the next step is clear, but naming your price or being seen brings things up.

We work on both.

Rachel Connor has shared that she doubled her client base and increased her rates while doing this work.

We won’t promise you a number.

We will help you build something real to sell—and support you as you bring it into the world.

→ SEE THE FULL OFFER

A few moments from the tent

was bidding from a treadmill. Getting his steps in while keeping us on our toes.

appeared at $700, disappeared, then returned at $1,800. Brad understands an entrance.

took the lead at $1,975. followed with $2,100.

Goddess now leads at $2,222.

Along the way, there were familiar faces, first-time bidders, a Fibonacci moment, and people cheering for the people who outbid them.

I love that.

You can want to win and still want good things for the person holding the other paddle.

And then the generosity took another turn.

“We’d like to add something.”

Five people contributed their own work to help whoever wins.

All five contributions unlock if bidding reaches $2,500.

They join a full year in Sacred Growth Club, a custom AI writing voice clone, and our complete micro-training and template library.

Here’s what that means for the winner.

A year of people in your corner

12 months in Sacred Growth Club — $3,996 value

The private work helps you choose, build, and bring your offer to buyers.

Growth Club gives you somewhere to keep refining it, writing about it, and getting support as you grow.

Inside, you get:

• Business Growth Office Hours three times a month with me. Help with your offers, positioning, pricing, and next moves.

• Twice-weekly embodiment sessions with Carolina. Practice staying connected to yourself through the discomfort of visibility, invitations, and growth.

• Twice-weekly Writing Circles. Supported time to write the email, shape the sales page, or finish the invitation.

• Our private community. Honest reflection, shared wins, and support between calls.

It’s where you bring the price you’re hesitating to name or the email you’ve rewritten enough times and would quite like to send.

We aren’t currently accepting direct enrollments. People enter through private work with us or one of our cohorts.

So the auction comes with a little side door. 🎪

Tools to support your writing and next steps

A custom AI writing voice clone trained on your writing and mission

Help drafting in your own voice, with your experience, judgment, and final say.

Our complete microtraining and template library

Practical resources to draw on as you build your offer, make invitations, and respond to what happens.

And four generous additions from our friends

🎁 One year of Slow AI from — approximately $136 value

Sam helps people think clearly about AI and keep their own judgment involved as they use it. Care and perspective in a conversation that can get very loud, very quickly.

🎁 One year of Robots Ate My Homework from — £80 value

Including the entire RobotsOS library: creative thinking, practical AI systems, skills, agents, and playbooks you can bring into your work.

🎁 One year of WriteStack basic paid access from its creator, — $299.88 value

Support for a steadier Substack publishing rhythm, including scheduling your Notes so showing up doesn’t require being online all day.

🎁 ’ entire product stack — $884+ in listed value

Apparently Finn arrived with a moving truck.

His contribution includes:

• StackContacts App, Business Edition — $499

• StackContacts Encore — $99

• Finn Tropy Substack Pro Studio — $79

• CreativeTech Substack Notes for Claude Bundle — $79

• StackContacts Press — $49

• Audience Strategy Coach — $29+

• Substack Control Center — $25

• StackContacts Connect — $20

• Pangram AI Detection for Substack — $5+

• Seven additional free or pay-what-you-want resources

🦩 LATE ADDITION: Pinkie from has added The Branding Flock.

You’re building an offer people can understand. Pinkie helps you make the visuals recognizably yours, too.

The Branding Flock is her 12-month program for solopreneurs building a consistent visual brand with AI, with tools, live sessions, and reusable AI skills.

So every cover, post, and graphic starts from a system that looks like you, instead of another round of “why does this look nothing like my brand?”

It joins the winner’s bonus collection if bidding reaches $2,500.

Apparently the tent now has flamingos. 🦩🎪

Sam, Mia, Orel, Finn, Pinkie thank you.

These are things you’ve spent your time and care building. Seeing you offer them to support someone else’s next chapter means a lot.

What unlocks at $2,500?

Everything listed above goes to the eventual winner if bidding reaches $2,500.

That’s more than $5,255 in listed value, plus Mia’s £80 annual membership, on top of the private work.

Before counting the custom AI writing voice clone.

Before counting our microtraining and template library.

The tools and memberships give us more to work with. The point is what we help you do with them.

Choose your offer. Build it. Price it. Bring it to real buyers.

How the money works

Only the winner pays their winning bid. If you don’t win, you don’t owe your bid amount.

If you win, you’re committing to purchase the package at your winning bid—so bid an amount you’re happy to pay.

Every bidder can also claim these three gifts for a separate $1.49:

• A full year inside Sacred Business Network.

• Clarity Compass.

• All three sessions of Carolina’s upcoming Confidence Workshop.

That’s $255 in value, available even if you don’t win. The Network year is for new members. We’ll send bidders the claim link.

Your next move

If you’ve been watching and thinking, “I could actually see myself doing this…”, here’s your invitation.

You bring your experience, your ideas, and your willingness to put something real into the world.

We bring practical help with the business and inner support as you choose, build, and ask for the sale.

And apparently, our friends bring a truckload of extras.

Bid Now ...

A $2,500 bid would exceed that bid and unlock the whole package for the eventual winner. Check the Note for the latest bids before placing yours.

All bids go in that Note’s comments. Questions, cheering, and a little friendly mischief belong there too.

Carolina, Marcus, and I will see you under the tent.

Bring your paddle. Gary may bring the treadmill.

With Love,

❤️⚡️ Phil (& Carolina)

🚨 Bidding closes TODAY, Thursday, October 15, at 2 p.m. Eastern.

We’re auctioning ONE private spot with Carolina and me.

90 days to choose your offer, build it, price it, and bring it to real buyers with business strategy, inner work, and private support as you move.

You don’t need a finished offer. Choosing what to build is where we start.

This is for you if you have skills, experience, and meaningful work to offer—but need help turning it into something people understand and buy.

Check the bidding Note for the latest bids.

👉 OPEN THE BIDDING NOTE →

All bids go in that Note’s comments. This page explains what you’re bidding for.

Click Here to Bid

HERE’S WHAT WE’RE HERE TO DO.

You’ve got magic.

A body of work, a way of seeing, or a way of helping people that is distinctly yours.

We’re going to help you put it into something people can buy.

🏆 We’re here to help you get PAID for your magic. And THANKED for it.

Not just “clarity.” Not a beautiful plan that stays in a drawer.

PAID.

We won’t promise you a number.

What we will promise is that you’ll have a clear, refined offer to sell, a price you can stand behind, an invitation in your own words, and private support as you bring it to potential buyers.

90 days to build it and bring it into the world.

And if the bidding reaches the next unlock, you’ll have support as your offer takes root beyond those 90 days.

A CLEAR OFFER. AND SUPPORT TO ACTUALLY SELL IT.

Sometimes the offer needs work.

Sometimes you know the next move, but choosing, pricing, or being seen brings up resistance.

We work on both.

I will help you shape the offer, positioning, and business model.

Carolina helps you work through the fear, self-doubt, and inner friction that show up as you bring it into the world.

So when it’s time to name your price, send the invitation, or follow up with someone interested, you have support for both the practical decision and what it brings up in you.

WE BUILD IT WITH YOU.

Some of the work we do for you. All of it we do with you.

That’s how we make sure what emerges is effective—and recognizably yours.

You work with Phil and Carolina separately, with each focused on their part of helping you move.

HERE’S HOW.

👉 Choose the offer you’re actually going to build.
One 90-minute Offer Roadmapping session with Phil to decide who it’s for, what it helps them achieve, and how it fits your business and life.

👉 Work through what’s been stopping you from putting it out there.
Three private calls with Carolina to work with the fear, self-doubt, and resistance that show up around choosing, visibility, and selling.

👉 Get your magic written back to you in words you’d actually use.
Your core offer invitation document: what you help with, who it’s for, what’s included, and what it costs.

👉 Build two supporting assets WITH us.
An About page, invitation emails, a pillar post, or your choice from the available asset list built around your work and your voice.

👉 Bring the offer to real people.
Within your private support, we’ll help you identify potential buyers, start conversations, make invitations, and follow up. Then we’ll use the response to refine what isn’t landing.

👉 Have somewhere to bring the decisions as you go.
A private thread with us throughout the 90 days for questions, drafts, feedback, and course corrections as you put the offer into action.

Different starting points. Different results.

The point is to get your work into contact with real buyers.

Then comes the part this is actually about.

Someone pays you real money for your magic.

And comes back to tell you what it did for them.

Selling does not have to turn you into someone you are not.

At its best, it is a clear invitation:

“This is what I can help with, this is what it costs, and this is what might become possible.”

🎁 IF THE WINNING BID REACHES $2,500…

The winner also receives ALL of this:

✨ 12 months in Sacred Growth Club — $3,996 value
Business Growth Office Hours three times a month with Phil, twice-weekly embodiment sessions with Carolina, twice-weekly Writing Circles, and our private community. A year of support as your offer takes root.

✨ A custom AI writing voice clone trained on your writing and mission
Support for drafting in your own voice, with your judgment and final say.

✨ Our complete microtraining and template library
Practical resources to help you take the next step as you build, invite, and sell.

And our friends have added their own goodies to the prize:

🎁 One year of Slow AI from Dr Sam Illingworth — approximately $136 value
A thoughtful approach to using AI while keeping your own judgment, care, and perspective involved.

🎁 One year of Robots Ate My Homework from Mia Kiraki — £80 value
Including the entire RobotsOS library: creative thinking, practical AI systems, skills, agents, and playbooks to bring into your work.

🎁 One year of WriteStack basic paid access from its creator, Orel — $299.88 value
Support for a steadier Substack publishing rhythm, including scheduling your Notes so showing up doesn’t require being online all day.

🎁 Finn Tropy’s entire product stack — $884+ in listed value
StackContacts App, Business Edition; StackContacts Encore; Finn Tropy Substack Pro Studio; CreativeTech Substack Notes for Claude Bundle; StackContacts Press; Audience Strategy Coach; Substack Control Center; StackContacts Connect; Pangram AI Detection for Substack; and seven additional free or pay-what-you-want resources.

Apparently Finn arrived with a moving truck. 🎪

That’s more than $5,255 in listed value, plus Mia’s £80 membership—on top of your 90 days of private work.

And that’s before counting the custom AI writing voice clone or our microtraining and template library.

The tools give us more to work with. The point is what we help you do with them:

Choose your offer. Build it. Price it. Bring it to real buyers.

If bidding reaches $2,500, the eventual winner receives everything above.

HOW THE AUCTION WORKS

One private spot. No reserve.

Bidding opened at $1. Check the Note for the current high bid before placing yours.

You can bid as many times as you want before bidding closes.

Bidding closes Thursday, October 15, at 2 p.m. Eastern.

All bids belong in the comments of the bidding Note.

HOW THE MONEY WORKS

Only the winner pays their winning bid.

If you don’t win, you don’t owe your bid amount.

If you win, you’re committing to purchase the package at your winning bid—so bid an amount you’re happy to pay.

Every bidder can also claim these three gifts for a separate $1.49:

• A full year inside Sacred Business Network.

• Clarity Compass.

• All three sessions of Carolina’s upcoming Confidence Workshop.

That’s $255 in value, available to every bidder, even if you don’t win.

The Network year is for new members. We’ll send bidders the link to claim the gifts.

READY TO BID?

👉 OPEN THE BIDDING NOTE →

Check the latest bid, then leave yours in the Note’s comments.

Bids, questions, cheering, and a little friendly mischief are all welcome there. 🎪

🚨 Bidding closes TODAY, Thursday, October 15, at 2 p.m. Eastern.

Everything Is Connected,
Phil and Carolina ❤️⚡️

PS If you see in the bidding Note or your DMs, he’s with us and helping with the auction. 🎪

Click here to bid

One private spot. 90 days with Carolina and I to choose your offer, build it, price it, and bring it to real buyers.

But there’s a question worth answering before bidding opens:

“What if I’m not even sure what I want to offer?”

Or you have five ideas and don’t know which one to choose.

Or you’ve been thinking about the same idea for three years and wonder whether that means something.

You don’t need to arrive with a finished offer. Choosing what to build is where we start.

You bring your skills, experience, and willingness to act. We help you turn those into a clear decision.

The roadmap session gives us a direction: who you’ll help, what they’ll be buying, and which offer we’ll build together.

And choosing one idea now doesn’t mean abandoning the others. It means giving one of them a real chance.

Last year’s auction winner, left this comment on our post:

“I did the S-B auction and worked with Phil and Carolina about a year ago. It was a wonderful experience that moved my business forward significantly. I got clarity on my offer, wonderful guidance about delivery, and a huge jumpstart on my Substack. A big boost of confidence in creating and putting it out there.”

He also described what shifted through his work with Carolina:

“So it was an upgrade in my own being, and in the process by which I am sharing my life’s work.”

Then he added:

“Worthwhile! p.s. They didn’t ask me to write this.”

That’s what we want for the person who wins tomorrow’s auction: a clear offer, a way to reach people, and the confidence to put your work in front of them.

Now, here’s what everyone who bids gets, not just the winner:

• A full year inside the Sacred Business Network (new members only)

• The Clarity Compass

• All three sessions of Carolina’s upcoming Confidence Workshop

That’s over $255 in value, even if you don’t win the private spot.

There’s one detail: you’ll need to pay $1.49 to claim those three gifts. We’ll send bidders the payment link.

Place a bid of at least $1, and you can claim all three gifts for just $1.49, whether you win or not. We’ll send bidders the payment link.

Only the winner pays their winning bid. Everyone else can simply claim the gifts for $1.49

So even if you don’t win the private spot, you still walk away with over $255 in value for a dollar.

Watch for tomorrow’s auction post at noon Eastern. That’s where you’ll bid.

Have a question before it starts? Leave it below. and our team will help you get ready.

One private spot. $1 minimum bid. Highest bid wins. No reserve.

Everything Is Connected,
Phil and Carolina ❤️⚡️

10/14/26 Update #3 The Auction is Live:

**************************************************************************************************

10/ 13/26 Update #2: The auction opens tomorrow, Wednesday, October 14, at noon Eastern.

And everyone who bids at least $1 can claim three gifts for just $1, whether they win or not: a full year inside the Sacred Business Network (new members only), the Clarity Compass, and all three sessions of Carolina’s upcoming Confidence Workshop.

👉 Read today’s post for how bidding works and how to claim your gifts.

**************************************************************************************************

10/12/26 Update #1: Well… that was fast. 🎪

Our Auction Insider Circle has already hit Substack’s 50-person group limit.

Still interested? Drop your questions or a simple “I’m in” in the comments below. and our team will make sure you have what you need before Wednesday’s auction opens.

The insider’s group is full. The auction is open to everyone.

Keep an eye out for the bidding post Wednesday, October 14, at noon Eastern. One private spot. $1 minimum bid. No reserve. ❤️⚡️

One person will win 90 days of private work with both of us to build a clear offer and bring it to real buyers.

And as the bidding climbs, we’ll be adding more value, including support that keeps us in your corner well beyond those first 90 days.

$1 minimum bid. Highest bid wins. No reserve.

Here’s how to be ready:

Watch for Wednesday’s auction post here on Substack dropping at NOON EASTERN. That’s where you’ll bid.

Before then, we’re gathering interested bidders in a free pre-auction group, where we’ll share tips to help you prepare and give yourself the best chance of winning.

If you’ve already commented on last week’s post expressing interest, keep an eye on your Substack chats for your invitation.

Want in? Leave a comment below saying you’re interested, and we’ll invite you too.

And if you see or hear from Marcus Anderson, he’s with us. 😊 He’s part of our team and will be helping with auction admin, answering questions, and making sure everyone gets what they need.

One person wins the private spot. Everybody who bids gets something.

More on that tomorrow. 😉

This is the same work that helped double both her prices and her client numbers in just 3 months, and land his first $1,500 client, as well as build up his incredible Sober Creative Podcast where he’s landed legendary guests like Hunter Biden.

If you’ve got meaningful work you’re ready to bring into the world, this could be your next move.

Comment below to join us before the auction. Then watch for Wednesday’s bidding post.

Wednesday. Noon Eastern. One private spot.

Everything Is Connected,
Phil and Carolina ❤️⚡️

Which is funny, because behind the scenes, I’ve been pretty far down the rabbit hole.

Claude with Obsidian. A Grok bot. ChatGPT routines. Plenty of experiments that taught me something, even when they didn’t earn a permanent place in my day.

Lately, I’ve been spending a lot of time with Instinct. And I’m surprised more people aren’t talking about it.

Here’s one feature I love: and I each have our own AI, and we’ve added each other as trusted contacts. Our agents can communicate and help coordinate things on our behalf.

That is very, very cool!

We each have our own context and our assistants can work together to get things done on our behalf.

But the part I’ve put the most thought into is what my AI has to work FROM.

A business has a lot of history. You’ve made decisions, changed your mind, learned what your clients actually need. Some of that lives in documents. Plenty of it lives in your head.

An assistant needs a way to understand which version of the offer is current, which draft is an experiment, and what you mean when you say, “That doesn’t sound like me.”

, who writes ROBOTS ATE MY HOMEWORK, helped me think this through in her essay How to build a world for your AI.

She’s one of my favorite voices in the ai space right now. I used that essay to help build the “world” my Instinct works inside.

For me, that meant giving my strategic documents, references, writing examples, and business decisions a home, with clear guidance about how to use them.

My voice belongs there. So do the principles I trust, our current offers, and the difference between an idea we’re exploring and a decision we’ve actually already made.

Otherwise, a beautifully written answer can send you moving towards something you already decided wasn’t the right direction.

Here’s what that looks like in practice:

A person raises their hand with interest in our small group cohort program, Your First Yes. Their email conversation is in Gmail, their assessment results are in Notion, and the offer I’m prepared to share with them lives in Google Drive.

Previously, bringing that together meant opening tabs and reconstructing the conversation before I could make decisions on how I’d best like to communicate in service of someone making a decision.

Now I can ask the system to read the history, find where we left off, so I can craft a useful follow-up message without having to hunt for what the person has already shared with us.

In one evening of auction outreach, this setup helped prepare eight WhatsApp message links and 19 Gmail drafts.

I still crafted the words and assumed full ownership over what to send. But having the context cohesively in one place ready gave me a much easier place to begin.

If you’re experimenting with AI, start with one job you already do every week. Give it the sources you trust and describe what a good result looks like. Then test it on something you do regularly and already have a strong understanding about what the process should look like.

One call preparation brainstorm. One follow-up. An invitation you’ve been meaning to write.

You’ll learn more from that than another afternoon consuming more AI content. You’ve got to get your hands dirty and make it practical!

And this is a pattern I see well beyond AI.

You can have years of experience, thoughtful writing, and work that really helps people, while still struggling to answer, “How can someone buy this?”

The offer is half-written. Your Substack readers love what you share. When someone asks about working together, you’re still piecing the answer together.

All that depth deserves a clear path into the world.

That’s the thinking behind the auction idea Carolina and I shared yesterday: one private, 90-day build for someone who already has meaningful skills and experience.

We’d help shape the offer, build the invitation and emails WITH you, and use your Substack to bring it to the right people. Carolina will also support what comes up around being seen and receiving money for your work.

You’d have somewhere to be supported in decision making while you’re actually moving the ball forward.

We’re exploring an auction with bidding starting at $1. The winning bid would set the price.

If you’d like a clear offer you can put in front of real people, without having to piece every part together alone, read what we’re considering and tell us whether you’d bid.

Everything Is Connected,

Phil ❤️⚡️

Learn About The Auction

If you’re building a business from the heart but feel the walls going up around your next step, our free Harmony Map assessment helps you see what’s creating friction and where to bring your attention so you can move forward.

Take the Harmony Map

Who we’re celebrating: , turning five years of work into a deck you can use

This week I'm celebrating my friend and past client Toku McCree and the launch of Toku Tarot.

He's built a 78-card deck with a question on the back of every card. You don't have to know how to interpret tarot to have somewhere to begin. The question gives you something to explore.

One card is called The Beginner's Mind. Its question: "What do you want that feels impossible?"

Toku says this project has been five years in the making. He's spoken openly about the fear of what people would think of the deck, and of him.

Now he's putting it into the world.

And there's a part of this I'm especially pumped about. A long time ago, Toku and I talked about an opportunity for custom decks for communities. Now we're planning a customized version for Sacred Business Flow!

An idea we talked about is becoming something our community can hold and use.

So here's to you, Toku. For giving this work a form other people can explore. I'm excited to see where it goes. Check out the deck here.

Express Interest in Auction

Happenings

Your offer. Your Substack. Us in your corner. - Opens October 14

You have work you want to offer. Choosing the focus, naming the price, and sending the invitation keep getting in the way.

Carolina and I are opening one private spot for 90 days to build your offer, invitations and emails WITH you, and help you bring it to real people. We'll stay involved as you make invitations and refine the offer from what you hear.

$1 opening bid, not the final price. Bidding opens in the comments of Wednesday's launch post. Read the idea and tell us if you'd bid →

The Weekly Highlights

She had built a successful business doing work she loved, but slowing down still felt like guilt. One observation on our call made her shoulders drop, and it might explain why the success you’ve earned still feels so hard to enjoy.

Carolina's "hell no" to four days of live translation became a yes after a pause - a conversation about trusting yourself to begin before your experience gives you proof.

The Chinese Bamboo and Your Sacred Business

You keep writing, making invitations, showing up, and still the ground looks quiet. Our short animated film, Your Roots Are Listening, is for that season of your Sacred Business: three minutes and twenty seconds for anyone wondering whether their work is taking root.

Memorable Quote by

Confidence, in practice, is our tolerance for being seen mid-process

Source: Mia Kiraki, Confidently Creative? (Aug 17, 2026)

10/14/26 Update #3: The Auction is Live:

**************************************************************************************************

10/13/26 Update #2: The auction opens tomorrow, Wednesday, October 14, at noon Eastern.

And everyone who bids at least $1 can claim three gifts for just $1, whether they win or not: a full year inside the Sacred Business Network (new members only), the Clarity Compass, and all three sessions of Carolina’s upcoming Confidence Workshop.

👉 Read today’s post for how bidding works and how to claim your gifts.

**************************************************************************************************

10/12/26 Update #1: You said yes. It’s happening. 🎪

The auction is officially on: Wednesday, October 14, at 12 noon Eastern.

One private spot. $1 minimum bid. Highest bid wins. No reserve.

And well… our Auction Insider Circle has already hit its 50-person limit. But everyone can bid, and and our team will help you get ready.

👉 Head to our official announcement, “What would you bid to have us in your corner?” for the details—and drop your questions in the comments there.

One person wins the private spot. Everybody who bids gets something. More on that tomorrow. ❤️⚡️

Read the Announcement

Carolina and I have an idea.

What if we opened up ONE private spot to help someone turn their skills and experience into a clear offer, build the page and emails WITH them, and get it in front of people ready to pay?

And what if, instead of setting a fixed price, we offered that spot auction style…

With a $1 minimum bid?

Would you be interested?

Before you answer, let me tell you what we have in mind.

You might already have years of experience helping people. You might be a therapist, a practitioner, a coach, or someone whose work has evolved beyond what your current job allows you to do.

There’s something you want to offer.

But each time you try to make it real, you run into decisions that are hard to make on your own.

Which part of your work should you lead with? What would someone actually be buying? How much should you charge?

Then there’s explaining it. Writing the offer and invitation. Sending the email. Having the conversation where you name the price and wait for an answer.

That’s where we’d work with you.

Your offer, built WITH you

For 90 days, Carolina and I would help you take the idea you keep putting off and turn it into something people can understand, buy, and benefit from.

We’d start by choosing a clear focus: who the offer is for, what they want help with, and what you can help them accomplish.

From there, we’d help you explain it in one sentence and set a price that makes sense for the work and the life you want to build.

Then we’d build the page and the emails WITH you.

We’d also help you grow your Substack and use your writing to get that offer in front of more of the right people, so readers have a clear path from “I love your work” to “How can I work with you?”

You’d have something you could send to a real person when they ask, “How can I work with you?”

And we’d stay involved as you started making invitations, hearing questions and feedback, and refining the offer based on what people actually respond to.

Because getting the offer written is one step. Bringing yourself to send it can bring up a whole other set of questions.

Support for the business and the person building it

You’d have private calls with each of us, doing what each of us is best at.

I’d help you make the business decisions and turn them into a clear offer and real invitations. Carolina would help you work with what comes up around being seen, trusting yourself, and receiving money for your work.

Plus a private thread where you could drop a question any day during those 90 days and get support as you go.

When someone asks about your price, you’d have somewhere to bring that conversation. If you get a response you don’t know how to interpret, we could look at it together.

You’d have help taking the next step while the work was actually happening.

Everything is connected. The offer needs a clear structure, and you need support bringing it into the world.

This would work best for someone who already has skills and experience, but needs help turning what they know into a clear offer.

You can come with doubts. You do need to be willing to build, make invitations, and work with what you learn.

So… would you bid?

We’re considering opening ONE SPOT for this private, 90-day build.

Auction style. $1 minimum bid.

The winning bid would determine the price. The $1 would be where bidding starts.

Right now, we’d love to know whether this is something you’d want.

If you’d like us in your corner while you build your offer and bring it to people who could benefit, would YOU bid at least $1?

Hit reply or leave a comment with:

1️⃣ Yes, I’d bid.

2️⃣ I’m interested, but I need more information.

3️⃣ No, I’m good.

Everything Is Connected,
Phil and Carolina ❤️⚡️

In episode 5 of Sitting on a Bench, Carolina and I start with her “hell no” to translating a four-day sound-healing training, and the pause that made saying yes possible. Then we get into the part “confidence comes with experience” doesn’t explain: what lets you take the first step when you haven’t had that experience yet. We talk about inner confidence, making invitations, and how to bring your work into the world without needing every doubt to disappear first.

TL;DR — Here’s what we covered

• What Changed Between “Hell No” and Saying Yes to 40 Hours of Live Translation

• The Kind of Confidence You Can Access Before You Have Results

• Why Trusting Yourself to Handle the Experience Changes What You’re Willing to Try

• How Needing to Get It Right Can Keep Your Work From Reaching Anyone

• Why Your First Offer Can Be a Hypothesis Worth Testing

• What Working With Famous Musicians Taught Me About Doubt at Every Level

• How to Invite Your First Client Without Pretending You’ve Done It All Before

• Why Clear Agreements Make It Easier to Try Something New

• What Taking Action Can Reveal About Your Work That Thinking Alone Can’t

• Two Simple Practices for Slowing Down and Reconnecting With Yourself

• When More Training Builds Your Skills, and When You’re Still Waiting for Permission

Watch the opening, then upgrade to Network for the full conversation.

Access The Private Podcast

Read more

There was only one problem: the course was taught in Portuguese, and the teacher didn’t have enough English to teach Phil while also teaching everyone else.

A few days later, the teacher sent a message with a possible solution: you could hire a translator, or maybe your partner could come? She could translate, and she would get the certification too.

Phil shared the audio with me! My first thought was… Me? Translating live, simultaneously, for ten hours a day?

Hell no.

My mind had a long list of reasons why I should not go. I’ve never done this before. I don’t have a music background. I don’t even like translating. In daily life I mix up my words. I don’t think I can, or should.

And there was more. Phil was investing real money into this training. If I said yes and failed, I could compromise his experience. Having a real translator sounded like a better idea to me.

Every reason made sense. And underneath them was the fear of disappointing the teacher and Phil, who was so excited about this experience.

But something else was happening too, and I could feel it very clearly. My body was closing. There was a tightness, a contraction, a wall going up. I wasn’t only thinking “no.” I was protecting myself.

This is why body awareness matters so much.

When we are present in our body, we can feel the resistance and the protection building up. We can see it as something happening in us, not as the truth about us. Without that awareness, we don’t see the thoughts as thoughts. We take them as truth. They sound so reasonable: I’m not capable. I’ve never done it. In fact, I don’t even like it. So I’m not going to do it. And the door quietly closes.

We miss the opportunity to learn something new about ourselves. Maybe that opinion we had about who we are was never the whole truth. Maybe there are untapped skills that life keeps nudging us toward, and we don’t pay attention, because the thoughts got there first and we never took the time to question them.

So I paused and asked myself: What am I protecting myself from? I got curious about the wall I was building around that invitation. I also got curious about whether I could actually do it.

Instead of I can’t, the question became can I? Is it possible for someone like me to hear one language in one ear while speaking another at the same time?

I didn’t know. But I chose to give this curiosity more space than the wall, and slowly my thoughts began to shift… hmmm, maybe I do like the idea of meeting the version of myself who could do that. Or maybe the version who can’t do it at all.

Curiosity is the gate.

Subscribe now

I said yes. But I had to detach from the outcome. I was honest with Phil. I told him I would translate to the best of my abilities, and that, in the worst case, he might need to take the course again. I didn’t promise I would be good. I didn’t need to.

I was also making peace with the possibility that it would not be for me, or that maybe I would enjoy it in a way I had never thought of before.

What I felt was a different kind of confidence. Not I know I’ll succeed. It was:

I trust myself to go through this experience, whatever the outcome.

I didn’t need to know how it would end before I could begin.

The training was more than forty hours, ten hours a day, with the teacher speaking nonstop. Was it perfect? Not at all. I asked him to slow down. I told him when I didn’t know a word, or didn’t understand what he meant. I was honest about where I was, and the teacher and the whole group met me there with so much kindness.

And I did it.

What surprised me most was the presence. With someone speaking in one ear and my own voice coming out in another language, there was nothing else in my mind. It was pure presence, and it let me meet myself in a different way. Those days were mindfulness at its best.

Not only did I learn I was capable of translating that way, but I also received hidden gifts from the course itself. I discovered aspects of myself I had barely noticed before and now want to explore.

This kind of confidence, the one that lets you take on a challenge like that for the first time, is available to all of us, but most of us have forgotten it.

We usually talk about what I call outer confidence. It’s the confidence that comes from proof: you’ve done something many times, you have results, you know you can deliver. Or it comes from external validation: a law degree, a recognized certification, the example of people who walked the same path before you. That confidence is real, and it has its place.

But there is another one. Inner confidence. We are all born with it. Watch a child trying something for the first time. There’s no proof and no certificate, just presence, curiosity, and play. Somewhere along the way we forget it, and we start believing we need permission from the past before we can step into the future.

Why does this matter?

Because when you are building a business around your own work, you are stepping into something you haven’t done before. Your experience shaped the framework. Yes, you are sharing skills you have learned throughout your life, but more than anything, you are helping people overcome challenges you overcame for yourself.

No one has walked your exact path before you. At the beginning, you may have years of experience, but no proof yet for this particular expression of your work. Inner confidence lets you begin. Many people never start because they are waiting for proof that can only come from doing it.

Your curiosity about who you might become can be bigger than your fear of failing. And failing is also okay.

I’m not saying I want to become a translator now. That’s not the point. But I discovered a skill I had no idea I had. If I decided to take it further, that’s when outer confidence would come in: I would take courses, learn the techniques, practice, and develop it. Inner confidence opens the door. Outer confidence builds the house.

Life is always talking to us. Sometimes it’s an invitation we didn’t ask for, something we never planned, something we think we don’t even like. But ‘I like it’ and ‘I don’t like it’ can be old opinions, or borrowed ones we’ve never questioned. Your Sacred Business is inviting you to meet more of you.

So the next time you feel the walls going up, pause. Feel it in your body. Ask what you are protecting. Then get curious about who you would be if you could. What small step would let you find out?

What is life inviting you into right now that an old opinion keeps saying no to?

With love,

Carolina

If you’re building a business from the heart but feel the walls going up around your next step, our free Harmony Map assessment helps you see what’s creating friction and where to bring your attention so you can move forward.

Take the Harmony Map

Who we’re celebrating: 8 powerful beings turning their magic into one clear offer

This week I want to celebrate eight people who said yes to themselves. They chose to bring clarity to one offer and start putting it into the world.

We just kicked off our Your First Yes cohort, and we could all feel the connection, even though most were meeting for the first time.

For a community to be built, something has to bring everyone together. For us, it’s building from the heart.

We want money. We are here to build profitable businesses. But money alone is not enough. The business has to support work that matters to us and the life we want to live: more authentic, slower, more connected.

The offers taking shape have that “ohh, that was the missing piece” feeling. For some, they bring more coherence to an already amazing business. For others, it feels like home: finally being able to articulate their magic clearly.

It’s beautiful to witness.

So here’s to all eight of you. For choosing one offer. For being willing to bring it to real people. For giving your magic a chance to become something people can say yes to.

The world needs what you have to give. And your work deserves to support the life you want to live.

If you’re ready to turn your magic into one clear offer people can say yes to, join the waitlist for the next Your First Yes cohort.

Join the YFY Waitlist

Happenings

Market and Sell with Confidence · October 26–28

You know your work has value. Then it’s time to name the price, and the walls go up.

Join Carolina for three live sessions to practice describing your work, saying your price, and making a real invitation—even before you feel ready.

$99 for all three sessions. Replays included. Join us →

The Weekly Highlights

Success without the rush

She had built a successful business doing work she loved, but slowing down still felt like guilt. One observation on our call made her shoulders drop, and it might explain why the success you’ve earned still feels so hard to enjoy.

A $2,000 investment led to roughly $20,000 in revenue, but Phil couldn’t count on a dollar of it when he said yes. Here’s the question that helped him decide whether he was being financially cautious or waiting for proof that could only come after he moved.

The Chinese Bamboo and Your Sacred Business

You keep writing, making invitations, showing up, and still the ground looks quiet. Our short animated film, Your Roots Are Listening, is for that season of your Sacred Business: three minutes and twenty seconds for anyone wondering whether their work is taking root.

Memorable Quote by James Stephens

Curiosity will conquer fear even more than bravery will.

Her impressive career had grown into a successful business helping people with something she truly believes in and loves.

Her breakthrough frequency, the result of her assessment, was Love.

She came to the call curious. She was already being guided by her heart and creating something new, something she called her legacy work. Work she wants to live beyond her life here.

She was clear about how she was helping others, but something was missing.

As she said, “It feels different to me, but I can’t quite name it yet.”

I told her that sometimes, when the next phase of a business is calling for more love, it’s an invitation to do more of what you love.

But for her, as for many of our clients, maybe this next phase was inviting her to love herself more.

Her shoulders dropped. She sat back in her chair and said, “Wow. That’s totally true. I never really thought of that.”

What does that mean in practical terms?

The first invitation love makes, very often, is to slow down.

These women are very successful. They have already built something meaningful. But often, if you are like me and like them, success came through an unhealthy relationship with masculine energy:

Hustle more. Do more. Always be busy. Take care of everyone.

And you are always at the end of the list.

It’s a hard change. I am in it, and I witness many women on the same path.

For me, slowing down means enjoying a stretch of time without feeling guilty. It means creating pockets of space to wonder, to just observe. My business keeps inviting me back to that.

Slowing down requires a different relationship with life altogether.

Deep inside, these women know they can be successful without the rush. They just don’t know how.

There is a constant feeling that they could be doing more, that they should be ahead. When they have space, it needs to be filled with something.

Pausing feels like guilt.

A client once told me her big shift was healing her relationship with masculine energy and feeling for herself that she can do magic, that her business can be built from that energy.

This wasn’t just an insight. She took action from that space. She finally started creating space for herself while creating meaningful impact in the world.

Maybe you are like me too, and like many of our clients. You found success while operating in unhealthy masculine energy, and now your feminine is ready to rise.

Not only in your rituals and personal life, but in business too.

But it won’t rise if we don’t heal our relationship with the masculine.

For some women, this almost comes with a rejection of the masculine. But in reality, these two energies need each other. They depend on each other to give birth to something real and meaningful.

If your business is inviting you to experience more love, don’t forget to add yourself to that list.

Maybe it’s allowing what you do to love you more.

With more and more love,
Carolina

You love your work. But where are you on the list of people it takes care of?

If you’ve built something meaningful but still feel guilty slowing down, that’s worth paying attention to.

The free Harmony Map helps you find your breakthrough frequency and see where to focus next—so the business you’re building can support you, too.

Take the Harmony Map →

Take the Harmony Map

Carolina and I were all in on the business we were building. The money wasn’t coming in yet. And I was about to spend $12,000 on help crafting our story and message.

On paper, it looked scary as hell. My nervous system agreed. We made the investment because we needed a clearer way to speak about the work we were building, even though I couldn’t put a date on when it would pay for itself.

I faced a smaller version of that decision earlier this year, during a summer lull. We felt we were putting real effort into the business and the results weren’t matching it. I had to admit something uncomfortable: I was again too close to what we’d built to see what needed to change.

I needed someone to hold up a mirror.

That support cost $2,000. Before saying yes, I checked that we could cover it from our existing business income even if the work brought in nothing new. It was a stretch, but it wasn’t a bet on an immediate return.

The work has since led to revenue I can trace to that decision, roughly ten times what I paid. More importantly, it helped us build a clearer vision for moving forward. I couldn’t have counted on either outcome when I invested.

I’m glad I said yes. I also know how easily that story could become bad advice.

Someone could read it and conclude that the answer is to trust your gut and make the investment. I don’t believe that. I’ve heard from too many thoughtful people who put money into coaching or business support and didn’t receive what they needed. Sometimes the offer was weak. Sometimes the fit was wrong. Sometimes the work demanded more than they could reasonably give.

Financial risk doesn’t disappear because something feels aligned.

So how do you decide when your heart wants to move and your mind is making a convincing case to wait?

I start by listening to what each is actually saying.

In my body, fear often feels like butterflies in my stomach. There’s energy there, and an awareness of the risk. When something feels like a true no, I experience more of a contraction around my heart space. A yes can feel like a leaning forward, even with the butterflies still going.

That’s how I experience it. It isn’t a universal test, and a feeling alone can’t tell me whether an offer is good or whether I can afford it.

I also look at the person and the support. Have I spent enough time with their work to know how they think? Can they speak honestly about what they’ve helped people achieve and where the limits are? Do I trust them to stay engaged when the plan meets reality?

Then I look back at myself. If I receive the support they’re offering, can I follow through on my part? Is this work I still want when it asks something difficult of me?

That question is about my own commitment. It doesn’t make the person offering support less responsible for delivering what they promised.

Finally, I ask the least romantic question of all:

What happens if the return takes longer than I hope?

With that recent $2,000 investment, I had an answer. I could cover the cost from the business as it stood. I didn’t need the new work to pay for itself right away. Without that answer, the same excitement in my body might have led me to a different decision.

The numbers help me see what I can responsibly risk. My heart helps me see whether the direction is worth pursuing. And my history with myself tells me whether I’m likely to do the work once I say yes.

I need all three.

There’s a point where more analysis stops giving me new information. I’ve looked closely at the person. I understand what the support includes and what it cannot promise. I know what happens if the return takes longer than I want. And I still feel that leaning forward.

At that point, waiting for certainty won’t make the decision safer. The evidence I want can only come from movement. Sometimes that means investing in support. Sometimes it means running the next test myself. Either way, I can’t demand proof of a result before I’m willing to take the step that could create it.

That doesn’t mean every stretch is a yes. A real financial constraint deserves to be honored. So does a true no in your heart.

But if you can carry the risk, you trust the support, and you know you’ll bring your full commitment to the work, life may be asking you to move before it shows you the result.

LFG.

And if you’re ready to move but can’t yet see where your effort belongs, start with the free Harmony Map Assessment. In about eight minutes, it will help you see the pattern creating friction in your business and where to focus next. Then you have something concrete to act on.

Take the Harmony Map

With Love,

Phil

She has another job, she takes care of someone in her family, and a busy life just like almost all of us. But underneath all of it she carries a deep desire to have something of her own… to own her time and help more people. She is extremely gifted. She has already helped people, real people, with real, specific problems.

She knows she can help. She just won't call it a business yet, because it doesn't yet make enough to sustain the life she wants to live.

Her biggest challenge, she told me, was time. So in her mind, the problem was a lack of hours. We hear this often — but in reality time is usually not the issue.

Clarity is.

We hear all the time that you don’t have clarity before you walk, you gain it as you walk. But there is a clarity that is born out of a decision you make, and that is the one people most often never make for themselves.

When I started my business I had a full-time job, I am a mom and I had a life as busy as anyone’s. All I could give my little side gig was four to five hours a week. And I decided that would be enough.

I also decided from the very beginning that eventually this side gig would become my full-time job.

That second decision mattered more than the hours, if you’re building for sustainability, that clarity from the beginning is everything. With only five hours a week you can make a lot happen, if you know clearly what you want.

I’m glad I let those five hours be enough, because they grew into something. Years later I no longer have the full-time job, and Sacred Business Flow is my main source of income. I own my schedule more than I ever have, our business keeps growing, we have a thriving community and private clients and I don’t need forty hours a week to keep it expanding.

The eight-hour workday has nothing to do with how we actually work. It comes from a Welsh mill owner who, around 1817, coined the slogan “eight hours’ labour, eight hours’ recreation, eight hours’ rest” a humane push against the brutal 12-to-16-hour factory shifts of his time. The number we all inherited was designed for assembly lines and for protecting people from exploitation.

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It was never a measure of how long a human can do good work.

The brain doesn’t run on a flat line, it works in cycles, like everything in nature. The researchers who studied elite performers, the ones at the very top of music, sport, and chess, found they didn’t grind endlessly. They worked in intense bursts of sixty to ninety minutes, and then they rested. Which tells me that if you know where you’re going, sixty minutes a few times a week can take you really far.

Time is easy to blame because you can see it. Clarity is invisible, sometimes it feels clear in your head, but your actions aren't yet coherent with where you're going.

If you have five hours a week and you’re not making progress, it probably isn’t the hours. If I handed you thirty hours inside the same system, you’d most likely still be stuck.

More time poured into a lack of clarity just gives you more room to spin. You cannot out-hour a fog.

Maybe you are still looking for the words to explain what you do and how you help, and yes, this requires you to walk the path, talk to people, and keep refining. But more than that, a lot of people hold a desire to turn their side gig into a full-time job or their main source of income, but they haven't said that out loud. What I mean by that is: state to the universe what you want, and work on your belief system to make this goal very, very clear.

This will guide your actions.

Real clarity saves you time but also makes you uncomfortable.

taught me to ask a single question:

The answer is almost always small and something you can do in ten or twenty minutes. But it challenges your identity. It makes you uncomfortable. And the lack of time comes from spinning five hours over whether you should do it or not, when the action itself would take you less than ten minutes.

If you have three or four websites, you don’t need another one. If you’ve taken course after course on how to grow your audience and still aren’t making meaningful revenue, you don’t need another course.

What you need is one clear offer and to invite people into your world actively.

Clarity isn’t hard because it’s complicated. It’s hard because the clear thing is usually the vulnerable thing.

When your priorities are foggy, you could have all the time in the world and still not move forward. You bounce between half-finished tasks, and every time you switch, part of your attention stays stuck on the last one. The day ends, you’re drained, and you swear you didn’t even do much — and you’re right. That exhaustion is what convinces people they need more hours. What they actually needed was to know which one thing mattered.

So if you only have five hours a week to build your business, that’s perfect. Five hours a week took me from a side gig to a fully sustainable business.

Clarity starts with a decision: how do you want this business to serve you?

If you want your side gig to sustain your life, the actions are different than if you are just wishing for some extra cash.

There’s no right or wrong — but with the same hours available, you get to direct the outcome. You can run a hobby on five hours a week, or start a powerful, profitable business on those very same five hours.

The difference isn’t the time. It’s the focus, the intention, and the aligned actions you take.

With Love,

Carolina

If you’re not sure where your five hours should go, that’s what the Harmony Map Assessment is designed to reveal.

In eight minutes, it looks across clarity, confidence, and purpose to show you where your work is getting tangled and where your attention belongs next.

If something meaningful keeps calling you and you’re ready to stop waiting, start here:

Take the Free Harmony Map Assessment →

Who we’re celebrating:

from Resilient Mental State

Celebrating Kyle and his amazing 30-day plank challenge! Every month he offers a fitness challenge to his audience, and his consistency is inspiring.

I signed up, and to make it my own and something I could commit to, I decided I’d do it every time I went to the gym. I started the month sick, and I have a lot going on that’s affecting my regular gym schedule too. But I showed up, imperfect, and I still am, to the best of my ability. And every time I did, I felt on top of the world. Five minutes playing with different types of planks.

Thank you, Kyle, for being such an example of consistency and resilience.

I once heard something that captures how this feels: want an easy life? Do hard things. A great reminder to keep challenging ourselves.

Thank you for your service to the world.

The Weekly Highlights

Asking for help is an act of courage

For many years, I needed to prove to myself that I could do things alone. I think it was part of building my own sense of worth. Feeling capable. Feeling independent. It was an important phase, a long one, and I needed it.

But as I get older, I see how unhelpful it is to keep living that way.

When I do it all alone, my fight or flight stays on. There’s a constant bracing. Always on the go, never quite feeling supported.

So I’m learning how brave it is to ask for help. In every area.

How much more fun it is to build a business with people who share my values, instead of building it inside my head. How good it is to have help at home, and more space to enjoy my kids. How helpful it is to have a place to talk about the patterns I can see but can’t change on my own.

I understand the instinct to try it yourself first. I had it too. Let me see how far I can get on my own. And I’ll own it: it took me way too long to learn that going alone wouldn’t take me far. Not in business, and not in the rest of my life.

Doing it alone showed me what I was capable of. It could never show me what I couldn’t see. You can’t read the label from inside the bottle.

So if you’ve already tried on your own. If, like me, you needed to see how far you could go, and now you don’t have time to waste. If you’re done struggling alone. If you value the journey, and you want to be out of your head and into your life.

If there’s something in your heart you want to offer, and you need help finding the right words for it, naming the real transformation, so others can finally understand what you do.

If you want feedback from people who have walked the path you want to walk, and from a small group of smart people building amazing things alongside you.

If you want accountability to show up, to invite people, to put yourself out there, without feeling alone or lost in your thoughts.

Your First Yes is for you.

Here’s what Fleur shared with us right after our first call together:

The current cohort is full. There’s a waitlist, and if this speaks to you, We’d love for you to add your name. We’d love to support you in the next one.

Join the Your First Yes waitlist

Your Roots are Listening …

If you’ve been showing up for work you believe in and wondering whether anything is growing, we made this for you. 💛

Carolina imagined this little film from the old bamboo fable, and I brought it to life with AI. It’s called Your Roots Are Listening. Take three quiet minutes to watch it with the sound on.

And if someone comes to mind while you watch, please share it with them. They may need the reminder today.

Memorable Quote by Seneca

It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it

TL;DR — Here’s what we covered

• How Many Paid Subscribers Does It Take to Earn $5,000 a Month?

• What Our Bestseller Badge Does—and Doesn’t—Tell You About Our Business

• Why a $10 Offer Can Feel Safer Even When the Math Doesn’t Work

• How Three Clients Can Change the Income Equation

• Why Your First Offer Should Be a Hypothesis You Test in Conversation

• Where Your First Clients May Be Hiding in Your Existing Relationships

• When a Paid Subscription Creates More Work Than Its Price Can Support

• Why One Clear Invitation Can Beat a Menu of Ways to Buy

• How to Tell Whether the Friction Is in Your Business Model or in Your Willingness to Be Seen

Access The Private Podcast

‘Thank you , , , and many others for tuning into the live episode of our private podcast with !

If you’re building meaningful work on Substack, the question isn’t only whether people will pay to read it. It’s whether the business you’re building can support the life you want.

In the full conversation, Carolina and I do the subscriber math, share what our own Bestseller badge represents financially, and talk about the offer and conversations that can create income sooner.

Upgrade to paid to watch the full episode →

Read more

It sounds simple until you try to ask it in the middle of a difficult week.

Recently, Carolina and I spoke with someone who had made real progress in her business. Then life became demanding. She needed to rest. By the time she had room to think about the business again, she felt behind.

She could see everything she hadn’t finished. It was harder for her to see what she had done: showing up more visibly, making new connections, changing how she priced her work, and starting to build something she believed in.

During our conversation, she asked a brave question:

Did she still want to grow this business, or had she been holding on to an idea that no longer fit her life?

That question deserved a answer. Stepping away was a valid choice. So was continuing at a pace her life could hold.

What caught my attention was the story beginning to form around the pause: I’ve lost the momentum. Maybe there’s no point picking this up again.

I know that story. I’ve told versions of it myself.

And this is where the teaching met the practical work in front of us.

Choosing a new energy doesn’t mean declaring the hard season an illusion. The demands on her time were real. Her need for rest was real. So was the progress she had made.

The choice was whether the pause had to mean abandonment.

Carolina said something during that conversation that I really resonate with:

That might mean giving the business an extra thirty minutes this week instead of demanding a heroic comeback. Looking at the unfinished invitation and writing one more sentence. Asking for help while you still feel uncertain. Returning to a conversation you care about.

Small actions like these do more than complete a task. They let you experience yourself as someone who can return.

After sitting with it, this person chose to keep going. The next chapter wasn’t a promise to push harder. As Carolina put it afterward, it could be a steady, light, delicious push.

I love that distinction.

If you’ve been building meaningful work, take a moment to look at the energy you’re living in around it. You may find that the business needs to change. You may find that you need rest. You may also find that the work still matters to you, and one small action would help you meet it again.

You get to choose from where you are today.

This is part of what we practice in Your First Yes: choosing one direction, shaping a clear offer, making real invitations, and having support as you move through the resistance that comes with doing it. The current group is full, but if that’s the kind of support you want for your next chapter, join the next-cohort waitlist here.

Join The Wait List

With love,
Phil