147: I asked for one clear next step

Three days later, the answers started arriving.

A Paqo, a bruxa preta, a magician, and a spiritual surgery

Earlier this week, I asked a Paqo in Cusco whether I should spend more time marketing.

He spread coca leaves across a table.

I realize this is not how most business newsletters begin.

But the last week has not been especially ordinary.

The story really began three nights earlier, on August 8.

Carolina and I joined a shamanic bonfire led by Miguel Kuntur Andino at Aldeia do Holon, here in the mountains of Brazil.

Miguel greeted the four directions. He sang as the fire burned beneath a sky full of stars. We made offerings of tobacco and passed the cachimbo sagrado, the sacred pipe, around the circle.

When it came time to make my request, I asked for one thing:

Show me the next clear step in my work.

I went to bed that night feeling strangely at peace with all the mysteries of the universe.

Three days later, I was on Zoom with Maestro Raúl in Cusco, watching him spread coca leaves across a table.

The coca leaves from my reading with Maestro Raúl in Cusco.

The familiar summer slowdown in the coaching industry had arrived at the same time as a deeper question I had been carrying about the future of my work and how I serve people

Sacred Business Flow has always lived at the intersection between practical business building and something harder to put a label on. The deeper work. The inner shifts that change what we are willing to share, create, and invite people to walk alongside us with.

Lately, I had felt called to go further into that second part. I needed to know whether that calling meant changing direction or bringing more depth to the direction we had already chosen.

So I booked a coca leaf reading with Maestro Raúl of the Inca Medicine School.

The reading began with my health and soul. Eventually we came to the business.

One leaf sat slightly apart from the others. Maestro Raúl read it as a small loss of soul or life force near the throat, the same place where I had undergone thyroid surgery three years earlier.

According to Maestro Raúl, the leaves showed something encouraging.

“It’s a good work,” his translator told me. “It has steps. There are many clients. The spirits from Hanak Pacha… they like your job.”

The path was aligned. My way of approaching it was in need of more alignment.

Then came my real question.

Should I place more of my energy into studying the Paqo path now, or focus on the visibility and marketing needed to strengthen the existing business?

More leaves were cast. More prayers were spoken. Maestro Raúl and his translator studied the pattern.

Mama Coca’s answer was clear.

“You need to focus now in the marketing, publicity, in all the things that you need to do… to have more incomes. To be more visible.”

The spiritual studies could begin later, with more stability beneath them.

Even the shaman told me to market.

Also in the past week, Carolina and I began working with another kind of magician.

Years ago, a client started calling me “the wizard,” and the nickname followed me through the marketing world. Still, every wizard occasionally needs counsel from another practitioner of the craft.

I had known this particular business coach for nearly a decade and had long suspected there might be a moment when working together would make sense.

This was the moment.

The conversations quickly helped us separate what was essential from what had become tangled. Ideas became decisions. Decisions became things we could build.

Then, the following night, a bruxa preta appeared in my bedroom.

Here in Brazil, this enormous black witch moth is considered a sign of good fortune. “Enormous” is not poetic license. Its wings were wider than my hand.

The bruxa preta that somehow found its way into my bedroom.

And then, last night, came the spiritual surgery.

In my dream, I was sitting on an examination table with Carolina nearby. A doctor took my blood pressure and told me I was perfectly healthy. But she saw something strange in my blood and called in another doctor.

“This will only take a minute,” she said.

The second doctor pushed her hand down my throat.

My whole body gagged as she pulled out a large rubber bag that had somehow become lodged behind my airway.

“This was the problem,” she said.

The sensation was so physical that I woke up choking.

I lay there trying to understand what had just happened. The image felt unmistakably connected to expression and to something that had been obstructing the fuller truth of what I wanted to say.

Make of the moth, the leaves, and the dream what you will.

On August 8, I had asked for the next clear step.

Then the answer began arriving through coca leaves, wise counsel, a black moth, and a dream so physical it woke me up choking.

Any one of those things could have been coincidence.

Together, they formed a pattern I could no longer ignore.

No single spiritual sign handed me an airtight business plan.

Clarity came through the convergence of wise counsel, practical structure, the body’s strange intelligence, combined with a willingness to act.

This is so much of what Carolina and I mean when we talk about building a business from the inside out.

The inner work matters. It has to lead somewhere.

The dream may show you what has been blocking your throat chakra and your expression. You still have to open your mouth and speak.

Clarity often arrives this way. The heart, the evidence, and the right counsel begin pointing toward the same next action.

Then your job is to just do it.

So that is what we have been doing.

Something new is beginning to take shape inside Sacred Business Flow. Parts of it are already becoming tangible. Other parts still need to earn their place through testing, questioning, and refinement.

I will not give you a grand reveal yet.

I will only say that we are following the thread of inspiration and building what this newfound clarity is asking us to build.

You will hear more when it is ready.

For now, perhaps the question is simpler:

What has become clear enough for you recently, where the next answer can only come from taking action?

This week, it took a fire ceremony, a Paqo, wise counsel, a bruxa preta, and a very strange dream to reveal a pattern I could not fully see from inside my own work.

You can start with eight minutes.

The Harmony Map scores the nine frequencies shaping how you move and identifies the one most seeking balance. The pattern quietly influencing your decisions, visibility, and ability to follow through.

Because the friction is rarely where you think it is.

Free. Eight minutes. Immediate results.

Take the Harmony Map and see what has been shaping your actions.

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Who we’re celebrating: Josh Woll

When Josh came to us, The Sober Creative did not exist.

He was a videographer searching for his next chapter. Together, we clarified the deeper work and built the business from scratch.

Today, more than 1,000 people follow his work.

This week, he interviewed Hunter Biden.

We had been challenging Josh to reach higher with his invitations. He did. Then he earned the trust required to create an honest, deeply human conversation.

Hunter’s response?

“That was the most beautiful introduction I’ve ever gotten.”

This is what clear work and courageous invitations can open up for you.

We are so freaking proud of you, Josh.

Listen to the conversation.

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Happenings

A small result doesn’t always mean something is wrong.

Sometimes the work is resonating with your audience, but you’re using the wrong scoreboard, or trying to make the wrong business model carry your success.

In next week’s live conversation, we’re talking about how to tell the difference between:

• a real problem and an emotional interpretation

• early traction and failure

• a good offer and a business that can actually support your life

And we’ll leave you with simple actions you can take this week to create clearer momentum.

The Weekly Highlights

If business advice keeps making you feel like the problem, read this. Carolina names the difference between discomfort that expands your horizon and strategy that pulls you away from who you are, so you can build a business that actually supports your life.

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Want to know when discomfort means you’re growing and when it means your business is pulling you away from yourself? Become a paid subscriber and join the Sacred Business Network to watch the full conversation.

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Memorable Quote

“It’s a practice until you share it.”
— Hunter Biden, Sober Creative Interview