Space for Spirituality in Business

Can you trust the universe while building a company?

During a difficult period in 2023, trusting the universe changed my life. I had been diagnosed with Long COVID, a poorly-studied disease that was ravishing my nervous system and giving me horrible fatigue. I was single in Hawaii, I had a dog, and lived in a tiny dark studio that made my dizziness and blurred vision worse. I was having trouble stringing together sentences. My parents begged me to come home to California where they could take care of me. 

I lived in terror, and it got so bad I made preparations to die. That’s when I made two decisions: I would ask for help and I would trust the universe had a plan here. 

Over the next 8 weeks, my body made a turnaround. I was able to drive myself to the doctor again, I started cooking a little bit. And here I am 16 months later, writing this at my standing desk and kicking off a new company. 

Spirituality has become an important theme in my life and in my new venture. I now see myself as a steward for ideas and creative impulses granted by a higher power. I want to share a few examples of how trusting the universe fits into my company and life building in the hopes that you can find your own version for yourself. 

My Growing Relationship with Spirit

I was never trained to trust that good things would come. My parents both grew up poor and had to make their way up in life. They both believed in God but we didn’t talk about it much. They were entrepreneurs together, and they worked their butts off to build a good foundation for me. I imagine for generations before it was like this -- you reap what you sow. 

So when I built my last company, I put every bit of muscle I could into it. I worked weekends for 7 years. I turned down friends’ weddings and brunches and vacations. I retreated into my cave of work. 

Underneath all that was the constant pang of insecurity. Like the swordsmith clanging his hammer against steel, my mind was forged and consistently hit with the message that I was fighting the world to build my business. I couldn’t trust that things would turn out, that the universe would come to my aid. I sold it in 2020 just as the COVID hit, and I still wonder if the universe was taunting me or saved me. 

Fast forward to my illness last year and the decision to try this spirituality thing. I was at the end of what the medical world could offer me. So I attended the Joe Dispenza week-long advanced retreat last September. It was one of the first experiences I had with visualizing and feeling into the energy of the future that you want to attract. I had never spent so much time imagining a positive outcome before. I was, however, proficient at imagining the worst case scenario and planning for that. 

The low point of my illness was the beginning of my trust training program. This is where I began to open to the idea that my energetic state matters more than anything else. My state is comprised of the attitudes, beliefs, softness, and trust that I can bring to a situation. My energy conveys so much more than the words out of my mouth. And I needed to shift that state into one that believed in a good outcome supported by something greater than me.

Trust in Business

I’m now following my intuition with business in ways I never have before. Last week as I explored product development with my potential partner for a new venture, I noticed that I was leaving our initial meetings with the excitement of good talk but emotions that felt low energy. A prior version of me would have pushed this observation under the table or tried to justify it. Maybe I was just tired, maybe I didn’t sleep well enough the night before. But I knew in my bones something deeper was happening, I just didn’t have the right story.

Our next meeting, I decided to drop the execution discussion (which is SO fun for me) in favor of the conversation about energy. I tapped into the dynamic I was feeling in the room and I slowed down my desire to “get the conversation over with.” I would hold some space for a deeper conversation.

He opened up to me. He shared his battle scars about working in this space before. He wanted a win. We stumbled around in a desert of uncertainty for a bit, but eventually he found a geyser of energy around the business. I could hear it in his tone as the conversation shifted from me talking to him chattering away. I checked in with my body and the energy felt a little less knotted, like it had been freed up a bit. 

TBD on where this intuition seeking will lead, but even at a meta-level, I feel trust in the process. If we don’t do this together, it’s at the behest of a bigger power. Maybe he has his own creative impulse to honor in another space where he can be of higher service. 

Trust in Personal Life

I’m a big food controller. Ask my boyfriend, and he’ll tell you I always have my next meal planned. Sometimes I blame it on my Chinese-Jewish upbringing where we would spend our lunchtime arguing about what to eat for dinner. 

But secretly, this constant planning of my next meal is an ever-striving treadmill of trying to control the future. Constant control betrays a lack of trust in the universe. And a ton of scarcity. 

Last week I tried something different. We were invited to a friend’s sunset happy hour at her house. I hadn’t eaten dinner yet, and as 7pm rolled around this was about the time that I would be in food panic mode. But a new thought entered my mind.

“What if I trusted that the Universe would provide me a feast?”

I challenged myself to feel the flow of trust. That no matter what, I could trust that I would have my meal AND that it would be a better outcome than I could dream of. I imagined feeling the surprise and delight of a delicious, abundant meal. 

When we arrived at our friend's happy hour, my jaw dropped: the kitchen island was filled with the most delicious poke platter, heaps of charcuterie boards, bowls of hummus (my favorite food), and even chocolate-covered strawberries. 

What if I could approach the world with the golden glow of trusting the universe? This isn’t complete inaction or simple hope. I still had to accept the happy hour invitation, get changed, and walk to my friends house to find my feast. But if my approach to any situation is imbued with trust (and even openness to surprise), then my whole day turns around. Things feel lighter and I’m actively looking for magic at every turn. Where will the world delight me today when I simply give it the space to?

Trust as a Competitive Advantage

Shifting to trust has the hidden reward of bringing more gratitude into my life. If I believe things will turn out well, I’m looking for evidence of that. If I believe the world is against me, I will look for evidence of that. 

This is due to a part of the brain called the “reticular activating system” which can blot out certain things and bring other things to the forefront. For instance, if I asked you to look for how many blue items are in the room with you, this system would only focus on the blue. This is our focusing system, which we are training with our values and beliefs. If you value rounded corners and your friend values geometric edges, you will each have a different first impression of the same room. You literally see the world differently from someone else based on your values. 

Think about what your competitor values in the world. Is it wealth? Ego? You may not know them, but you can bet they have limiting beliefs that financing and customers are scarce and hard to get. Could you gain a competitive edge by seeing a world that offers you lessons to make you better and that brings goodness to you daily?

I’m training my reticular activating system to look for the surprise and the abundance. It’s a totally different kind of interaction with the world. I hope you’ll try it to find the feast you’re constantly planning for but never get to enjoy. Maybe this time you’ll savor it. 

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I appreciate you!

1. This was one of those edgy topics for me. I’m a budding spiritualist. I’m sharing what’s emerging for me as I approach a familiar space of entrepreneurship with a new lens. Do you have spiritual practices in business that you can share with me?
   

2. If you’re managing your inner work alongside your outer work of building a company, you may benefit from my coaching work. If you book a consult, I’m happy to chat more.