Can Building a Business Be a Sacred Act?
The gap between who you are and who you become at work
I posed this question online recently. The answers caught me off guard.
Some people bristled at the word “sacred.” Others felt relieved that someone was asking. A few admitted they’d never considered it possible, then wondered why.
If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you’ve spent years committed to personal growth. You’ve put in the hours. The retreats, the books, the meditation practice, the certifications.
But something’s off.
When you sit down at your desk to work on your business, you tighten up. The person who breathes through hard emotions on the yoga mat vanishes, replaced by someone more guarded, wearing an invisible mask that separates “real life” from “work.”
This isn’t a defect. It’s a pattern nearly everyone carries. You’ve simply been taught, like most of us, that business requires a different version of you than life does.
It doesn’t.
The average person spends 90,000 hours at work. That’s more than a third of a life. Add in the years spent preparing through school and university, and the number climbs higher.
Gallup research shows that less than 30% of people feel engaged in their work. The rest are going through motions they don’t believe in, in environments that don’t fit, building things that don’t feed them.
You already know this. The feeling that something’s wrong. That there must be a way to build a business without becoming someone you don’t recognize.
There is, and you already have access to it.
A few years ago, I would have given you a different answer. By 35, I had everything I thought I wanted. I was running a Facebook ads consultancy bringing in over $100K a month. One employee. A house in the suburbs of Boston. The fancy car. On paper, I’d won.
Inside, I was falling apart.
Years of overworking, playing the “lone wolf” who didn’t need help, and ignoring my body’s warnings finally broke me. Multiple autoimmune conditions. And then the discovery of a golf ball-sized tumor growing in my neck.
The doctor gave me 50-50 odds it was cancer. I was too young for this. At least, that’s what I told myself while my mortality stared back at me.
I didn’t have a strategy problem. I had an integration problem. The part of me that cared about meaning and connection was completely walled off from the part that made money. I treated them as separate, because that’s what everyone around me seemed to do.
I don’t share this as a success story. The tumor turned out to be benign, but the forced reckoning was real. I’m still in the middle of figuring this out. But I can tell you that the moment I stopped treating my inner life and my business as separate projects, things started to change.
How Fragmentation Shows Up in Business
This pattern hides well. It looks like being professional, realistic, or strategic.
In visibility, it looks like editing yourself before you post. Softening your message. Wondering if you’re “too much” or “not enough.” You know what you want to say, but something stops you from saying it fully.
In pricing, it looks like undercharging because asking for more feels uncomfortable. Or overworking to justify what you do charge. The math makes sense, but your body resists.
In consistency, it looks like starting strong then fading. Big launches followed by silence. Knowing what to do but not doing it. The know-do gap grows, and you blame yourself for lacking discipline.
In decision-making, it looks like overthinking. Researching instead of choosing. Waiting for certainty that never comes. You have good instincts, but you’ve learned not to trust them in business contexts.
None of this means you’re broken. It means the part of you that knows how to act is cut off from the part of you that’s trying to build something. Reconnecting them is the actual work.
What We Do
This is what Carolina and I are building with Sacred Business Flow.
Not another program that gives you more tactics to implement. Not more knowledge to add to the pile you’ve already got.
We start from a different premise: your inner patterns create your outer results. Business growth and personal growth are the same work. When there’s harmony between who you are, how you serve, and something larger than yourself, the business that emerges isn’t just profitable. It becomes a partnership with something bigger than you.
This isn’t a fantasy where everything becomes easy, or a promise that you’ll never feel resistance again. It’s a practical approach to building something that honors your energy, serves others genuinely, and generates income without requiring you to abandon your values.
You already know how to do this. You’ve just forgotten.
One Practice to Start With
Before you open your laptop tomorrow, pause for 60 seconds.
Don’t meditate. Don’t set intentions. Don’t try to feel a certain way.
Just notice: is the person about to start working the same person who was present five minutes ago?
That’s it. No fixing. Just noticing.
When to do it: Every morning before work begins. Or before any task that usually triggers the “mask.”
What not to expect: A breakthrough. A revelation. A productive morning. This practice doesn’t produce results. It produces awareness. Over time, you’ll catch yourself mid-shift.
The goal isn’t to force integration. It’s to notice when fragmentation is happening. That noticing, by itself, starts to matter.
Optional
Choose one, or none.
Notice one moment today when “work you” and “real you” felt like the same person. What were you doing? What was different about that moment?
Or, if you prefer writing: spend three minutes with this question, without editing yourself: “What would my business look like if I didn’t have to protect myself while building it?”
Or try this small experiment: the next time you’re about to post something or send an email, pause and ask, “Is this what I actually want to say, or is this the version I think is acceptable?” You don’t have to change anything. Just notice.
A Few Questions for the Week Ahead
At the end of this week, you might consider:
What did I notice about the gap between my “work self” and my “life self”?
When did they feel closer together?
When did they feel furthest apart?
What was I doing when they felt most aligned?
What surprised me?
What do I want to stay curious about?
These aren’t performance metrics. There’s no right answer. They’re just ways of paying attention to something most people never examine.
Carolina brings eight years of training in embodiment, nervous system regulation, and bioenergetics. She understands why your body resists certain actions even when your mind knows they’re right.
I bring over a decade of business building, now filtered through the understanding that lasting results come from fit, not push.
Together, we’ve created something that works on both at the same time. Because that’s what works.
The Sacred Business isn’t about choosing between impact and income, between serving others and serving yourself. It’s not “me” versus “us.”
It’s both. The understanding that what’s good for you can also be good for everyone you serve. That the real version of you is the point.
If you’re meeting us for the first time here, welcome.
If we’ve been connected before but this feels like a different conversation, thank you for staying curious.
This work isn’t for everyone. It’s for people who are tired of hiding what they actually believe. Who want a clear path but refuse to sacrifice their soul to walk it. Who sense that the way they’ve been taught to build businesses isn’t the only way.
This isn’t a straight line. Missing a week, skipping a practice, forgetting to notice, none of that sets you back.
Take what’s useful. Ignore the rest.
I’ll be honest: I still catch myself putting the mask on. Last Saturday, mid-email, I noticed I was writing like someone I wouldn’t want to have coffee with. Deleted the whole thing. Started over.
The gap doesn’t vanish. You just get faster at noticing.
Does this happen to you? I’d like to know I’m not the only one still in the middle of it.
With Love, Phil
I mentioned that fragmentation hides well. It disguises itself as being professional, strategic, responsible. The Business Harmony Map cuts through the disguise. It’s a free 10-minute assessment that shows you exactly which of the 9 frequencies is creating the gap between what you know and what you do.
Your lowest score isn’t a judgment. It’s a doorway.
Man you're putting out the goods Phil! This one is even better than the push vs pull one!
I completely agree-there are quite a few modern business environments that require people to self-censor to an extent that moving to North Korea or Russia becomes an attractive option.
Attended a talk on systems thinking last week where the speaker highlighted that having the right believes is a prerequisite to building effective systems - it's only when your inner beliefs (paradigms is what he called them, like Bob Proctor) are correct that the systems you build on them will lead to the behavior and outcomes that are in line with you as a person.