Dear Ones,

Spiritual Business Principles

I’ve been thinking a lot about how to build a “spiritual business.”

What does that mean? I want to…

• Improve spiritual health of society through the mechanics of capitalism. I’ve seen the alternative economical models, and despite all of capitalism’s trappings, it’s still the best we got.

• Therefore, build assets that generate substantial revenue, instead of making another “job” for myself.
  I want to break out beyond the usual creator model of book-course-community-coaching. I know there’s something more…and I have to be willing to step out of my comfort zone to get there.

• Investing all profits back into the business, minus basic life requisites (food, water, shelter, healthcare.)

  I had written many draft essays around my guilt and awkwardness about making money as a creator with a spiritual bent. The Buddha was pretty explicit about making his teachings free, and the meditation center I go to does not charge. I also got accepted into Sati Center’s Buddhist Chaplaincy program this week, so I felt extra self-conscious about having ethical principles.

  But I was/am completely OK with my friends doing spiritual work for money, and clearly Thich Nhat Hanh was/is good at that too. So why did I have this double-standard for myself?

  Only recently, I realized that my guilt about taking money from others with spiritual creator work happens when I am buying bullshit from Amazon. Because this discretionary spending doesn’t serve my mission to help others with their spiritual health.

  It doesn’t mean that I’m going to stop buying bullshit from Amazon. Instead, I will dip into my savings from corporate jobs.

  This may be a strange solution, but a weirdly effective one for what I thought was a deep psychological block. Now I feel ready to move forward as a spiritual business.

Newsletter Multiverse

• One thing I’m mindful of is that I’m now connecting with new folks who are seeking spiritual support in their lives with my content and products, versus people who want to know what a creator’s life is like behind-the-scenes (or generally what I’ve been up to.) This newsletter was originally created to serve the latter, not the former.

• So I am going to do some newsletter multiverse clean-up: I will merge mailing lists that are more offerings-focused (e.g. Journal Zendo, Compassion Accelerator, etc.) and do ~monthly updates. Make them as directly useful for the subscriber as possible.

• THIS newsletter will stay the same as the original ethos—a weekly, what’s been on my mind, messy and vulnerable space. (I might start a “paid” tier for the extremely vulnerable and experimental writings.) I will add the monthly useful content to the same newsletter, so you don’t have to subscribe to both.

What are your thoughts on “spiritual business principles” or having multiple newsletters?

Warm Wishes,

Christin