Sacred Business Stories

Align With Your Deepest Truth
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Join us for honest conversations with entrepreneurs who are building Sacred Businesses that align with their deepest truth. If you've ever wondered how to build a business that supports your lifestyle while staying connected to your purpose, these conversations are for you. love.sacredbusinessflow.com

  1. You've Been Sitting on Something

    6D AGO

    You've Been Sitting on Something

    You’ve been sitting on something. Maybe for months, maybe longer. Not because you don’t have anything to say, but because the silence around what you’ve already written, or thought about writing, or almost published, has started to feel like a verdict. What if it isn’t? You read it back, you hear nothing from the outside world, and you decide to wait a little longer until it’s better, until you’re clearer, until the timing is right. When Mac first spoke honestly in a bible study group, the man who went next said something he’d never said to anyone. Mac didn’t cause that by being inspiring. He caused it by going first, and he understood precisely why. He built Porn Free Millennial from inside the situation it addresses, a Substack publication and podcast about recovery from pornography addiction, before the divorce was final, before his own story was over, before anyone was reading. He stopped for two years. Then he started again. He publishes it every Monday from his RV, alongside a corporate job he hasn’t left. The light, he says, is a great disinfectant. Once you get it into the light, it starts a process. Things start moving to where you can’t just be in the same place anymore. He realized in that room that sharing his story might just open up somebody. That if he went first, the person sitting next to him might say something he’d never said before. When you’re teaching something or sharing about yourself, he said, it calls you to elevate how you live your life. You can’t keep talking about something you’re not living into. What that looked like when five people were listening and the numbers said stop is what this conversation is about. Show Notes [Segment 1] — The Platform and Why It’s Named That • Porn Free Millennial addresses a topic most people won’t name publicly. Mac chose the name deliberately and doesn’t soften it. • His framing is honest from the start: this is his subject, his wound, and he offers it as a service. • The directness of the platform name sets the tone for the whole body of work. [Segment 2] — Where It Started: Age 10 Forward • Mac’s story began at age 10 and ran through marriage and into divorce. He is specific about the timeline. • He was caught, not confessional, six months into his marriage and handled the moment badly. He’s honest about that. • The secret didn’t break the marriage on its own. Managing the gap between who he appeared to be and what he was doing created the damage. • Mac describes having a public identity built on trustworthiness while carrying “this separate self I wasn’t too proud about.” [Segment 3] — Built It, Stopped, Then Started Again • Mac created Porn Free Millennial in 2021 while still married and nearly two years sober. He stopped before he launched it publicly. • A relapse after a cross-country move cut him off from his therapist, his bible study group, and his closest friends at once. Rebuilding those structures in a new city took longer than the gap they left. • He didn’t actually start publishing and podcasting until May 2023, after the divorce. The platform sat dormant for nearly two years. • The lesson isn’t about willpower. It’s about structure: the support system that makes the work possible is not optional, and it doesn’t travel automatically when you do. [Segment 4] — The Bible Study Moment That Changed Everything • Mac shared something vulnerable in a group bible study. The man who spoke after him immediately shared something he’d never said out loud before. • Mac recognized the pattern: going first creates permission. When one person stops managing their image, the people around them become capable of something they weren’t capable of before. • This moment became the operating principle of Porn Free Millennial: the platform exists because going first is contagious. • Mac’s words: “I shared something really deep. And what I noticed was, it was like the next guy after me shared something really private and something that they were struggling with. I think that was one of the first times I really realized, wow. If I shared something about my story, that might just open up somebody.” [Segment 5] — The Fear of Talking to No One • Mac’s first article got 20 to 30 reads. His first podcast episode got 5 downloads on day one. • The fear wasn’t that people would judge what he was saying. It was that nobody would hear it at all. • One friend reached out privately after listening. Mac decided that one person was worth more than any number the platform wasn’t giving him. • Carolina named the pattern: a reader will sit with someone’s work for a year in silence, then write to say something changed. The silence wasn’t indifference. It was process. The question Mac eventually stopped asking: What if no one is listening? [Segment 6] — How to Build Through Collaboration • Mac’s approach: interact with someone’s work before you ask for anything. Leave comments, engage with their posts, let them see your name before you reach out directly. • His most effective collaborations came from unexpected intersections, a film professor, a medieval art historian, an AI specialist, not from chasing people in the same niche. • Starting with a collaborative article is lower friction than a podcast invite. It builds trust and gives both people a finished piece of work before committing to a longer format. • The worst someone can say is no. Mac is direct about this. Most people never ask because they haven’t made peace with that outcome. [Segment 7] — The Growth Move He Didn’t Plan • A single Substack Note featuring a Duncan Trussell quote brought roughly 90 new subscribers. Mac did not predict this. • Substack Notes, not long-form essays, drove his biggest single growth moment on the platform. • The practical point: stay consistently visible in small ways and stop trying to engineer what spreads. • His Monday newsletter, consistent and unremarkable in ambition, proved more valuable over time than any single spike. [Segment 8] — What He Offers Now • Mac publishes a weekly newsletter every Monday, runs a bi-weekly podcast trending toward weekly, and writes Porn Free Poetry, one poem per month. • He offers one-on-one coaching starting with a free Zoom discovery call, available through his Substack about page. • He has an accountability software partnership with Ever Accountable, with a 20% discount linked on his about page. • Mac runs all of this alongside a corporate day job from his RV. He hasn’t quit to pursue the platform. He’s building it while the day job is still there. • His words on why consistency holds: “When you’re teaching somebody something or sharing stuff about yourself, I think that calls you to elevate how you live your life. Because I don’t wanna be talking about something if I’m not living into it.” Key Quotes “People would see Mac. You’d look at me and be like, oh, hey. That’s Mac. He’s trustworthy. He tells the truth. He’s honest. He has integrity[...] But at the same time, I had this separate self that I wasn’t too proud about.” Mac Dohm “I think when you get it out in the light[...] the light’s like a great disinfectant. Because once you get it in the light, it starts a process. It starts getting things moving to where you can’t just be in the same place anymore. You have to take some kind of action.” Mac Dohm “I shared something really deep. And what I noticed was, it was like the next guy after me shared something really private and something that they were struggling with. I think that was one of the first times I really realized, wow. If I shared something about my story, that might just open up somebody.” Mac Dohm “I’m not trying to hold things back because I hope that somebody can read it or listen to it and be like, okay. Well, if he’s doing it, then I can do it.” Mac Dohm “When you’re teaching somebody something or if you’re sharing stuff about yourself, I think that calls you to elevate how you live your life. Because I don’t wanna be talking about something if I’m not living into it.” Mac Dohm Resources Mentioned in This Episode Porn Free Radio: podcast hosted by Matt Dobschuetz Matt Dobshutz, one of the original voices in the porn-free recovery space. Mac credits this show with starting his recovery. Ever Accountable: accountability and content-filtering software. 20% discount available on Mac’s Substack about page. Porn Free Millennial Episode 50: Mac’s interview with Matt Dobshutz, cited as one of his best episodes. Substack Notes: the short-form posting feature Mac used to generate his single largest subscriber growth event. Duncan Trussell: comedian and podcaster. A Trussell quote shared as a Substack Note produced Mac’s biggest single growth moment on the platform. Where to Find Mac Dohm Mac built Porn Free Millennial from inside the exact situation it addresses, before he was ready, before his own story was over, and before the numbers gave him any reason to keep going. If you’ve been sitting on something that feels too personal to publish, he’s worth your time. Here’s where to find his work. Substack: Porn Free Millennial (weekly newsletter, bi-weekly podcast, Porn Free Poetry series, Reflections) Mac said that teaching something calls him to live into it. He can’t talk about what he’s not doing. That’s not a standard accountability trick. It’s a specific consequence of going public with the thing you’re still working on. This conversation left me with one question. What would you have to live into if you published what you’ve been holding back? Not what would change for your audience. What would have to change for you. Mac’s through-line was that what costs you most to keep hidden is often wh

    45 min

  2. FEB 18

    Kevin Rogers on Closing CopyChief, Ending a 25-Year Marriage, and Starting Over at 55

    The man who helped copywriters earn $25 million in contracts couldn’t pull the trigger on his own Substack channel. That’s the confession Kevin Rogers made on Sacred Business Stories this week. And if you’ve ever found yourself knowing exactly what you should do next while watching yourself not do it, this conversation was for meant for you. Kevin built CopyChief into a powerhouse community over 11 years. Live events with 300 people flying in from Australia and Asia. Legendary industry names jamming on stage at after-parties. A coaching program that actually worked. By any external measure, he’d made it. Then he walked away from all of it. The Problem Nobody Talks About Here’s the conventional wisdom: build the thing, scale the thing, optimize the thing, repeat. Success is a straight line from hustle to growth to more growth. Kevin’s experience tells a different story. Somewhere around year seven, the business that used to feel like play started feeling like obligation. His emails had to go through five people before he could send them. He was banned from pushing any buttons in his own software. The guy who built his success on spontaneous connection couldn’t wake up with an idea and share it anymore. “It started to feel a bit like a machine,” he said. The purity was gone. This isn’t just Kevin’s story. It’s the story of every creator who followed the playbook perfectly and ended up trapped inside their own success. The Middle Passage Framework Kevin discovered a concept from psychologist Dr. James Hollis called the Middle Passage. It works like this: Your first adulthood is built on one reference point: your childhood. You either try to live up to what you experienced or do the exact opposite. You create roles, chase significance, build identities. This is natural. Then one day you wake up having achieved everything you set out to achieve, and something whispers: “Is this it?” That’s not a crisis. That’s an invitation. Hollis calls it the transition to second adulthood. And the hard part? There’s no workbook. No 90-day calendar with little exercises. No roadmap telling you what the other side looks like. You just have to let go of any expectation for what life might have waiting for you. For Kevin, this meant ending a 25-year marriage, closing his business, and sitting in the uncertainty while everyone around him assumed some crime had been committed. The Real Shift Carolina asked Kevin a question that stopped the conversation for a minute: “How do you deal with both the spark of inspiration and the need for consistency?” His answer: “I need to be close to the thing I’m writing about and feeling.” This is the opposite of what most business advice tells you. Step back. Get out of the weeds. Be the visionary floating in the hot air balloon while your integrator handles the details. Kevin tried it. He hired brilliant integrators. It never worked. Because some of us aren’t wired to be separated from our work. We need to feel it in order to create it. And pretending otherwise just delays the inevitable burnout. The real insight came from Carolina: “You’re not going to figure it out with your mind. You’re going to figure it out as you walk.” Kevin wanted that line embroidered on a pillow. He’s sitting on five completed interviews for his new channel. He knows exactly what he should do. He has a decade of experience telling other people to just start and see what happens. And he still hasn’t promoted it to his list. What This Means for You If you recognize yourself in Kevin’s hesitation, here’s what he said to try: Pull out a pad and paper. Get away from devices. Write out the things you actually love doing in your business. Then think about how you could emphasize those and shed the rest. Simple. Not easy. John Carlton once told Kevin: “There’s no promise you’ll come back from burnout.” That warning lands differently for anyone who’s been grinding for years, running launch after launch, building something that somewhere along the way stopped being theirs. The Declaration Kevin made a public commitment during the conversation: before his 56th birthday on February 23rd, he’ll release his first episode of Paid to Create on Substack. I put it on my calendar. August 18th, 2026, he’s coming back to show us what he built in six months. If he’s saying any of the same things then, in his words, “I’ll not only be much skinnier because I won’t be eating anymore. I’ll be really annoyed with myself.” We’re holding him to it. Where to Find Kevin Kevin’s been quietly building on Substack and he’s about to go loud. Here’s where to follow along: Paid to Create — His new channel interviewing creative business founders about the calling, the craft, and the commerce. First episode drops before February 23rd. Subscribe now so you don’t miss it: Men in the Middle Show — The podcast he co-hosts with Joe DeRoma about navigating the Middle Passage. They recently interviewed Dr. James Hollis himself, the psychologist who wrote the book on second-adulthood transitions. If anything Kevin shared today resonated, start here: Kevin spent 11 years creating one of the most generous communities in direct response marketing. He’s one of those rare people who made his career by genuinely helping others succeed first. Whatever he builds next, it’ll be worth watching. One Question Worth Asking Kevin’s story reveals something that rarely gets said out loud: the gap between knowing and doing isn’t a knowledge problem. It’s a pattern problem. If you’re stuck in that same loop, wondering why you can’t seem to do the thing you know you should do, maybe it’s time to get curious about what’s actually happening underneath. The Business Harmony Map takes 5 minutes and shows you which of the 9 fundamental frequencies is creating your sticking point. It won’t tell you what to do. It’ll show you what’s getting in the way of you doing what you already know. Take the Harmony Map → Because Kevin was right about one thing: you can’t think your way to the answer. You find out who you are by walking. Thank you Monique Renée, Dennis Berry, Filip Sardi 🌊, Francis Nduati, Karen C-Collector of Books 📖, and many others for tuning into this episode of Sacred Business Stories with Kevin Rogers and Carolina Wilke! Get full access to Sacred Business Flow at love.sacredbusinessflow.com/subscribe

    55 min
  3. When Your Body Knows Before You Do — A Conversation with Midwife & Wisebody Founder Jane Riccobono

    FEB 11

    When Your Body Knows Before You Do — A Conversation with Midwife & Wisebody Founder Jane Riccobono

    This is part of our Sacred Business Stories series — weekly conversations with people who are building businesses that align with their deepest truth, not just their training. In this episode, we sat down with Jane Riccobono, a midwife and founder of Wisebody, who is building a healthcare practice for women who know they deserve better and are ready to trust their bodies again — without abandoning medical support. Jane’s story is going to land especially deeply if you’ve ever felt “too sensitive” for the way your industry does things. When the system becomes a source of injury Jane didn’t leave healthcare because she stopped caring.She’s leaving it in the traditional sense because she cared too much to keep pretending 15-minute visits were enough. Day after day, she would sit with women whose bodies were clearly speaking: * Tears that showed up before words * Symptoms that didn’t fit neat boxes * A quiet sense that something deeper was trying to be heard There’s a word for what happens when your job asks you to ignore that kind of truth over and over: Moral injury — the pain of participating in something you don’t fully believe in. Jane realized she could no longer treat her work, her values, and her body as separate projects. Something had to change. Trusting the wise body (hers and theirs) A thread that runs through everything Jane shared: The body isn’t the enemy. It’s the conversation. Instead of fighting symptoms, she started asking: * What is this pain trying to protect? * What is this fatigue saying about the pace of your life? * What happens when you’re actually heard, not rushed? That’s where Wisebody came from — a space where: * Spirituality is welcome * Medical training is respected * And a woman’s own body wisdom is central, not an afterthought This is the same move so many of our people are making in their own fields:refusing to leave parts of themselves at the door just to stay employable. You can’t build a new way alone Even after leaving the system, Jane tried to build her new practice by herself. Her honesty here was striking: she talked about how lonely and confusing it was to try to create an entirely new kind of care structure while unlearning the old rules. She reached a point where she realized: * Strategy alone wasn’t enough * She didn’t just need “more information” * She needed support while she implemented a truer vision That’s a pattern we see in almost every sacred business: * Deep training? ✅ * Real skill? ✅ * Willingness to serve? ✅ * Actual support for the transition? ❌ Sacred work asks a lot of your nervous system. Trying to do it as a one-person ecosystem is often the invisible bottleneck. A question for you Jane sees health as part of our transformation path — your body as a guide on the journey you’re meant to walk. Swap “health” for “business” and it’s the same: Your business is not separate from your life.Your patterns are not separate from your results.Everything is connected. So here’s the question I’d invite you to sit with after listening: Where is your body already telling you that the way you work isn’t quite right anymore? And a second one, if you’re honest enough to hear it: What kind of support would actually make it possible to build the business you keep thinking about? Listen to the full conversation You’ll hear us explore: * Leaving a system that doesn’t fit (without burning everything down) * How to work with your body instead of overriding it for “productivity” * The difference between burnout and moral injury * Why trying to DIY a sacred business usually stops working at a certain level If this is where you are right now… If you’re in that in-between place — no longer able to do things the old way, not yet supported in the new way — that’s exactly who we created our Serve & Receive private partnership for. It’s a 12-month container where we: * Map the pattern that’s been running your business (using the Harmony Map) * Design a business around who you actually are now * Walk with you through the first year of implementation so you don’t disappear when it gets confronting 👉 Book a Serve & Receive conversation No pressure, no hard sell. Just an honest look at what’s going on under the surface and whether this kind of support is the right next step. With love,Phil & Carolina Get full access to Sacred Business Flow at love.sacredbusinessflow.com/subscribe

    36 min
  4. Author Spotlight: Bob Burg on Why the Most Profitable Thing You Can Do Is Stop Making It About You

    FEB 6

    Author Spotlight: Bob Burg on Why the Most Profitable Thing You Can Do Is Stop Making It About You

    Bob Burg’s The Go-Giver has sold over 1.5 million copies in 30+ languages. The premise fits on a napkin: shift your focus from getting to giving, and you’ll make more money. Not because of karma or magical thinking, but because when people feel genuinely served, they buy. They refer. They become what Bob calls your “personal walking ambassadors.” We brought Bob on Sacred Business Stories for this special author spotlight because we kept bumping into his ideas with our own clients. The ones who struggle hardest with sales are almost never missing skill. They’re missing permission, the internal kind, to receive what they’ve earned. Bob has spent decades naming that exact problem. Here’s what he said. Show Notes [00:00] How This Conversation Happened We found Bob on our subscriber list. He’d been reading Sacred Business Stories for over a year without saying a word. That’s the kind of person he is: paying attention, showing up, no fanfare. Carolina and Phil share how the conversation came together and why Bob’s framework fits our community like a glove. [02:12] The Core Idea: Value Before Profit Bob breaks down the difference between price and value. Price is a number. Value is what the buyer actually experiences. His example: an accountant charges $1,000 but saves you $5,000 in taxes, hours of your life, and the peace of mind that it was done right. She gave more in value than she took in payment. You’re thrilled. She’s profitable. Both parties walk away better off. That’s the first law, and it’s the one most people get backwards. [07:06] The Five Laws Law of Value: give more in value than you take in payment, including the experience, the empathy, the attention, not just the deliverable. Law of Compensation: your income scales with how many people you serve and how well. Law of Influence: place other people’s interests first, not as self-sacrifice, but because that’s how trust gets built. As Bob puts it: “nobody’s going to buy from you because you have a quota to meet.” Law of Authenticity: your most valuable gift is yourself, but Bob pushes back on the modern hijacking of that word. Authenticity isn’t “no boundaries.” It’s acting congruently with your value system. Law of Receptivity: giving and receiving aren’t opposites. They’re breathing out and breathing in. [14:08] The Receiving Block Most Entrepreneurs Won’t Name Bob called out the unconscious anti-prosperity programming most of us absorbed before we were old enough to question it. Society, media, school, family, all of it installed the belief that making money from something you love is somehow wrong. He calls self-sabotage what it is: an inability to receive what you’ve earned. His advice? Make a deliberate study of prosperity. Read the teachers who help you make the unconscious conscious: Randy Gage, David Nagel, Ken Honda, Sharon Lecter, Bob Proctor, and others who specialize in dismantling these blocks. [16:44] “Does It Make Money?” Is a Great Question. Just Not the First One. We asked about the tension between purpose and profit. Bob didn’t soften it. Don’t start with “will it make money.” Start with “does it serve? Is there a market?” If yes, then ask the money question. If it won’t make money, you’ve got a hobby. Hobbies are fine. They’re just not a business. Then he flipped the frame: “Where was it that we learned that having fun and making money are dichotomous? We learned that from society.” Carolina added her research into the Portuguese word for work, trabalho, which comes from tripalium, an instrument of torture. That landed in the room. [23:01] Selling Is Giving. Literally. The Old English root of “sell” is sellan: to give. When you’re in a sales conversation, you’re giving time, attention, counsel, empathy, and value. A pitch is something you do to someone. A sales conversation is something you do for someone. Bob’s take on people who say “I hate selling”: “They don’t hate selling. They hate what they think selling is.” [25:14] Promoting Yourself Without Losing Yourself Phil asked Bob about feeling overly self-promotional. Bob’s answer: if you’re consistently giving value, your audience would be glad you told them about your product. The key is tying every promotion to how it benefits the other person. That’s not spin. That’s service with a clear invitation. [27:08] When Giving Doesn’t Seem to Be “Working” The question so many of our people carry: what do you do when you’ve been giving for years and it hasn’t come back? Bob broke it into two causes. The first, covering 95% of cases: you’re providing value as you see it, not as the market sees it. Value always lives in the eyes of the beholder. The second, covering the remaining 5%: you’re not letting yourself receive. You’re not asking for the order. And asking for the order isn’t a necessary evil. It’s an act of service, because you’re inviting someone to act on something they already told you they want. Bob added something that hit: “The chances are they actually need you more than you need them. They are one customer. But to them, you are that one solution.” [33:17] Take Action the Same Day In the book, Pinder tells Joe he must apply each lesson within 24 hours. Phil connected this to what we call co-creation: you learn something, you act on it, you receive feedback, and then you adjust. Bob confirmed that an idea without action is just entertainment for the mind. A go-giver is also a go-getter. Just not a go-taker. [36:06] Michael Singer and the Highest Use of a Life Bob shared a quote from Michael Singer’s Living Untethered that he keeps taped to his computer: “The highest thing you could do with your life is to make it so that every moment that passes before you is better off because it did.” He reads it every day. It gave Phil goosebumps. It gave us something to sit with long after the recording stopped. Key Quotes “Shifting your focus from getting to giving is really where it all begins.” - Bob Burg “Money is simply an echo of value.” - John David Mann “They don’t hate selling. They hate what they think selling is.” - Bob Burg “The most self-interested thing you can do is to put your self-interest aside.” - Bob Burg “The highest thing you could do with your life is to make it so that every moment that passes before you is better off because it did.” - Michael Singer Resources Mentioned The Go-Giver by Bob Burg and John David Mann (1.5M+ copies sold, 30+ languages) Living Untethered by Michael Singer The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer The Surrender Experiment by Michael Singer Prosperity teachers: Randy Gage, David Nagel, Sharon Lecter, Lisa Peterson, Ellen Rogan, Ken Honda, Derek Kinney, Bob Proctor Where to Find Bob Visit burg.com to subscribe to his Substack column The Daily Impact, read free chapters from any of his books, and explore his work.’ What This Means for You Everything Bob described, the receiving block, the value misalignment, the guilt around charging, the inability to ask for the order, these aren’t random struggles. They’re patterns. And they connect directly to why you might know exactly what to do in your business but still can’t seem to do it consistently. The Business Harmony Map measures 9 frequencies across three dimensions of your life and business and shows you the one pattern creating the bottleneck. If you’ve taken the assessment and want to understand what your results mean for your next move, book a free Integration Call with Phil and Carolina. We’ll look at your specific frequencies together, talk about what’s working and what’s not, and tell you honestly what we think would help, whether that’s us or not. Book Your Integration Call Thank you to Bob for his time and his generosity, and to everyone who joined live or caught this on replay. P.S. The full archive of Sacred Business Stories lives right here on Substack. If this one stuck with you, send it to someone who needs to hear that giving and receiving were never at war with each other. Thank you Josh Woll, Claire Machado, Maria Gehrke, Francis Nduati, Monika Rawat, and many others for joining us for this special edition of Sacred Business Stories with Bob Burg and Carolina Wilke! Get full access to Sacred Business Flow at love.sacredbusinessflow.com/subscribe

    41 min
  5. Sacred Business Stories: The Audience-Building Mistake Almost Everyone Makes

    JAN 28

    Sacred Business Stories: The Audience-Building Mistake Almost Everyone Makes

    You don’t need tens of thousands of subscribers to build a real business. You need 300 people who’ve actually talked to you. Jo Barnes has spent 15 years testing this idea across multiple six-figure launches, an e-commerce exit, and 45 countries traveled with a laptop. Her take: 30,000 passive followers who occasionally skim your content are worth less than 300 people who actually know your name. On this week’s Sacred Business Stories, she explained why most people fail at audience building. It’s not a strategy problem. It’s a visibility problem. And fixing it is simpler than you think. The Real Reason You’re Not Growing Jo runs strategy calls with aspiring entrepreneurs. She keeps seeing the same pattern. “What’s blown me away is how much creativity and talent people have,” she told us. One client had 20 published books on Amazon. Solid work. Real effort. But the books weren’t selling. Jo asked the obvious question: Who’s your audience? Silence. “That seems to be the sticking point. I’ve got this creativity and talent to build stuff, create stuff, launch products. But I stop when I have to go and actually build an audience.” Creating products feels safe. You can do it alone, in private. Telling people about them? Being visible? That’s where people freeze. Here’s what Jo said next that stopped me: “I think people feel that they have to reveal themselves in some way in order to do that.” That’s the real barrier. Not strategy. Not tactics. The fear of being seen. The 300 vs. 30,000 Rule Jo’s been in online business since 2010. She watched Facebook go from a place where you could actually talk to people to a content farm where engagement means nothing. Her take: “You could have 30,000 people on your list. If you haven’t engaged with them, if you’re not connected with them, it’s 30,000 people who are just maybe reading your stuff every now and again.” Compare that to 300 people you’ve actually talked to. Responded to. Connected with. “That is so much more valuable than 10,000 people who you never speak to and who just occasionally watch a video.” I shared my own experience to back this up. My first online business generated multiple six figures consistently for years. The most I ever had on my email list? Fewer than 1,000 subscribers. Never broke that number. The difference wasn’t scale. It was clarity. Every person on that list knew exactly why they were there. The relationship was strong. The math isn’t about reach. It’s about depth. The 30-Day Challenge That Actually Works Most people sit around wondering what brilliant insight to post. What amazing note will make people subscribe? Jo’s challenge flips that completely. For 30 days, don’t post your own content at all. Instead: Find people whose work resonates with you. Comment on their posts. Restack notes you find interesting and add why it mattered to you. Share other people’s stuff. Respond to comments on your own page like a human being, not a content machine. “If you did that a couple of times a day for the next 30 days, you would start to increase that engagement and that relationship building without a shadow of a doubt.” This isn’t theory. It’s how Facebook worked in 2010 when Jo built her first audience. It’s how Substack works now. The platforms that let you actually connect with people are the ones worth your time. One more thing: don’t use AI to respond to comments. “You can tell it a mile off,” Jo said. “Don’t do it.” Nobody’s Watching Your First Videos (Use That) Jo shared a stat: around 935,000 videos get uploaded to TikTok every hour. Her point? When you’re starting out, nobody’s watching. That’s not a problem. That’s freedom. “Those first videos you do, nobody’s watching. Nobody cares. It doesn’t matter. Just do it.” She found a content creator named Simon Squibb who’s now everywhere in the UK, doing street interviews, promoting his book. She went back and found his videos from four or five years ago. “They were terrible. Absolutely terrible. He was falling over his words. Talking about really boring stuff.” But he did two-minute videos every single day. For years. By the time anyone noticed, he was good. Now he’s got ads in tube stations. Nobody saw him practice. They only see him now. The Ego Trap for Experienced People Jo’s been doing this for 15 years. She’s had six-figure launches, sold an e-commerce business, built and rebuilt multiple times. And she still struggles with this: “I can’t look like a beginner again.” New platform. New rules. New skills to learn. Her ego says she needs to show up as the expert. That keeps her from being transparent about what she’s still figuring out. The shift came when she realized something: people don’t want to learn from untouchable experts anyway. “I think people want to learn from people who are like them. They want to relate. They want to feel that you’re going to trip up.” Someone once told her: “Jo, I learned just as much from the things you get wrong as I do from the things you get right.” She shared a story about one of her first webinars. Seventy people showed up. Great success. Then she couldn’t figure out how to turn it off. She’s fumbling, shaking, and finally admits on camera: “I’m ever so sorry, guys, but I can’t figure out how to turn this webinar off.” Someone came on and helped her. She thought it was over. Turned to her husband and swore. Then the comments started rolling in: “We’re still here, Jo.” She’d been sharing her mistakes all along. That’s why people trusted her. One Goal. Everything Else Feeds It. Jo still uses Facebook. But not to grow her Facebook page. “My goal is to increase my Substack subscribers. That’s my goal. Facebook feeds that goal.” She sees people spread thin across five platforms, trying to grow all of them at once. They post everywhere, respond nowhere, and wonder why nothing’s working. Pick one goal. Let every other platform serve that goal. You won’t get overwhelmed. You’ll stay aligned. And you’ll actually make progress. The One Thing You Must Do Jo’s final point was urgent enough that she interrupted the wrap-up to say it. “If your goal is to monetize, please build that email subscriber database. It’s so important.” Platforms change. Facebook in 2010 felt like Substack feels now. Eventually the marketers descend. The algorithms shift. The magic fades. But if you have an email list of people who actually want to hear from you? They’ll come with you when everything else changes. “Whatever you do, please build that email database.” About Jo Jo Barnes runs The 50 Plus Nomad Club on Substack. Her motto is “Adventure never retires.” At 53, she’s currently backpacking through Brazil, heading to the Amazon, then Colombia and Central America. She’s also running a new e-commerce business and recently launched travel challenge cards on Amazon. If you want a practical picture of what building on Substack actually looks like, she recommends her post on how to make $2,600 a month in your first year. It follows a fictional character named Jane through 12 months of realistic growth: 47 followers by month three, a $9 PDF launch, small workshops, layered income. No hype. Just math. Find her at club.the50plusnomad.com or search “The 50 Plus Nomad” on Substack. What Jo’s Insight Means for You Jo kept returning to one idea: most people don’t fail because they lack strategy. They fail because they won’t be visible. They won’t engage. They won’t start while they’re still uncertain. The 300 people who matter aren’t going to find you while you’re hiding. They find you when you show up, talk to them, and keep showing up even when you’re still figuring it out. Resources Mentioned Books: The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss, The War of Art by Steven Pressfield People: Simon Squibb, Frank Kern, Ryan Deiss, Jeff Walker, Gary Vaynerchuk, James Clear Thank You Thank you Dr. Tara Cousineau 💛, Rebecca Weston, Ani Chisom, Corine van der Werf, Noelle Richards, and many others who joined us live with Jo Barnes and Carolina Wilke! And thank you, Jo, for sharing so openly. P.S. All previous Sacred Business Stories episodes are in our archive. Each one covers what actually happened behind someone’s business, not just the highlight reel. Subscribe if you want next week’s conversation in your inbox. We do this every week because watching others figure it out, including the stumbles, helps you figure out your next move. If you read this and felt something click, your results will show you exactly where that pattern lives. 8 minutes. Take the Harmony Map Assessment → Get full access to Sacred Business Flow at love.sacredbusinessflow.com/subscribe

    53 min
  6. Author's Spotlight: Dr. Kelly Flanagan on Keeping Your Heart Open When Everything in You Wants to Close

    JAN 23

    Author's Spotlight: Dr. Kelly Flanagan on Keeping Your Heart Open When Everything in You Wants to Close

    We loved our first conversation with Dr. Kelly Flanagan so much that we wanted to bring him back for something different. This isn’t a regular episode of our show. It’s an Author’s Spotlight to support the launch of his new book, The Road Less Triggered, and to share his work with as many people as we can. Kelly is a clinical psychologist, author, and coach who’s been featured on The Five Love Languages and Today Show. But what grabbed our attention wasn’t his resume. It was his core insight: connection doesn’t break down between people. It breaks down within them. That idea is really imporant in how we think about relationships, and the way we show up when things get hard. Which is why we wanted this conversation to happen. Show Notes [00:00] Why We Brought Kelly Back We don’t do this often. But when someone’s work directly applies to everything we teach about sacred business, we make exceptions. Kelly’s framework for staying open-hearted during conflict is too practical to keep to ourselves. [03:00] The Core Problem: Wanting Connection While in Protection Mode Most of us spend most of our time wanting to connect while simultaneously protecting ourselves. It’s a form of self-sabotage we don’t know we’re doing. Kelly calls it the grind of trying to connect when our impulse is actually to protect. When you close off and switch into protection mode, you lose access to creativity, communication, empathy, patience, and forgiveness. All the things you need most. [07:00] The New Year’s Resolution That Actually Stuck End of 2020. COVID year. Kelly blew up his business partnership, damaged his closest friendship, got so triggered one afternoon he went on a frustrated bike ride and broke his arm in two places. Then he found a quote from Michael Singer: “Do not let anything in life be important enough that you’re willing to close your heart over it.” That hit harder than the asphalt road had. He made a resolution going into 2021: moment to moment, notice his heart closing and try to keep it open. The word “try” was important. He knew this would be hard. [10:00] The Peaceful Pivot Process (3 Parts, 9 Steps) Kelly spent five years developing what Michael Singer couldn’t teach him how to do. The result is a framework for turning triggers into togetherness: Part One: Get Calm * Sense your conflict coming using your body * Disrupt your defensiveness (watch your urges instead of wielding them) * Cultivate calmness before attempting connection Part Two: Get Free * Get familiar with what’s hurting in that moment * Trace the story of that hurt throughout your life * Learn to feel it instead of defending it Part Three: Get Connected * Show up and express yourself * Stay curious instead of critical * Give yourself compassion so you can express it to others [12:00] The 80% Earlier Warning System Here’s the research that caught our attention: your body gives you 80% earlier warning that your heart is about to close than your thoughts or behaviors do. Kelly calls it interoception. Your sixth sense. You use it all the time without realizing it. When someone asks how badly you need to go to the bathroom, you use interoception. Your consciousness travels to an organ, does an assessment, reports back. You can harness that same superpower to notice when your heart is closing before you’ve already closed it. Everyone feels it differently. Some people feel it in the center of their chest. Others a little to the left, the right, down in the sternum, or in the gut. But it’s always somewhere between your waist and your temples. No one has ever said their toes cramped when their heart started to close. [19:00] The Mexico Story One year after starting his open-heartedness practice, Kelly’s family came back from a chaotic Christmas trip to Mexico. Machine guns. COVID restrictions. People extorting cash just to get back into the country. His daughter looked at him and said: “That must be why every time something went wrong, I looked at you and felt safe.” Kelly realized the practice wasn’t just changing him. It was changing the people around him even when they weren’t doing anything. A soothed nervous system soothes nervous systems. A calm soul calms souls. An open heart opens hearts. [26:00] You Only Control You (And That’s the Point) The part of us that wants to change the other person will feel deep injustice at this. But the wisest part knows we can only control ourselves. When you’re part of a pattern and you change your part, the pattern changes. Family systems theory shows this clearly. When one part of a system changes, the other parts first resist, then adapt. You are the environment in which your people live and move and exist. When that environment becomes calmer and safer, it influences how they show up. [31:00] Start in the Empty Parking Lot Kelly’s driver’s ed teacher used to say: “When I’m done with you, you’ll be able to drive on LSD.” He meant Lakeshore Drive in Chicago. But they didn’t start there. They started in an empty parking lot at the community college. Same principle applies here. Start with the small disappointments. The weather you didn’t want. The traffic jam. The cancelled plans. Kelly’s son tested positive for COVID on Christmas Day. They had to cancel the family gathering. Then his wife tested positive on New Year’s. More cancelled plans. These disappointments became training ground. If you can’t keep your heart open to small frustrations, how will you handle the really big ones? [34:00] A Book That’s Actually Fun to Read Kelly wrote a novel within the non-fiction. At the end of each chapter, you follow two fictional characters through a coaching session where they work through the exercises. His wife cried reading chapter six. That’s when he knew it worked. The book is built around the three-part process with nine steps total. But instead of dry descriptions in a box at the end of each chapter, you get story. [42:00] Building in Public Kelly brought each chapter to his Substack community during development. Monthly calls where they told him what worked, what didn’t translate, what was too complicated. His Substack is on its third name since 2023. That evolution reflects how much his understanding deepened as he built this in front of real people. [45:00] His Biggest Hope By the time someone finishes the first chapter, Kelly wants them to have a new lens they can’t take off. Just to walk around noticing: my heart closed there. And there. Opportunities for transformation are everywhere. The ambitious version: he wants this book in as many hands as possible because our big human experiment is at a critical point. We’re going to have to take responsibility for showing up with open hearts if we want to miss the tipping point. The longest longitudinal experiment in human history out of Harvard has shown definitively that above every other factor, our sense of togetherness with our people determines our happiness. And here’s the kicker: how many times has being triggered resulted in more togetherness in all of human history? Zero. Key Quotes “Connection doesn’t break down between people. It breaks down within people.” “Do not let anything in life be important enough that you’re willing to close your heart over it.” — Michael Singer “A soothed nervous system soothes nervous systems. A calm soul calms souls.” “You are the environment in which your people live and move and exist.” “How many times have we ended up more together as a result of being triggered in all of human history? Zero.” Resources Mentioned * The Road Less Triggered by Dr. Kelly Flanagan (March 2025) * The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer * roadlesstriggered.com — Pre-order and get the first chapter immediately plus a 90-minute masterclass * Harvard’s longitudinal study on happiness and togetherness Where to Find Dr. Kelly Substack: Dr. Kelly Flanagan Thank You Thank you Josh Woll, Claire Machado, Jennifer O'Neill, drcharlesparker, Cecilia, and many others who joined us live and shared this conversation. Special thanks to Dr. Kelly for being generous with his time, his work, and his willingness to come back twice. P.S. Want to explore past editions? You can check them out here. What’s Next: Subscribe to get new episodes and essays delivered directly to you. Get full access to Sacred Business Flow at love.sacredbusinessflow.com/subscribe

    55 min
  7. Ruben Hassid: Why Taste Is the Only Skill Left

    JAN 21

    Ruben Hassid: Why Taste Is the Only Skill Left

    Ruben Hassid spent his childhood computer time writing blog posts about video game optimization instead of playing the game. His brother thought he was nuts. Twenty years later, that pattern, test things repeatedly, figure out what worked, teach it simply, built a 700K LinkedIn following and 230K+ on Substack. This week he shared what happened. Turns out his ChatGPT success in December 2022 came after a music label at 18, seven years of curation, and a ghostwriting gig in Berlin. The viral post was in many ways the result of a decade of practice. Show Notes [00:00] - Why He Keeps His Personal Brand Impersonal His siblings don’t know what he does. He doesn’t find backstory relevant to daily content. This conversation is an exception. [04:35] - Video Games to Content Creation At nine, Ruben got obsessed with Guild Wars character builds. He wrote French blogs, realized the English forum had more readers, taught himself the language through Arctic Monkeys and comedy clips. The pattern: experiment, figure out what works, teach. [09:00] - The ChatGPT Post November 30, 2022. Berlin coworking space. He tested ChatGPT, spent a week reading academic papers, translated jargon like “few-shot prompting” into plain language, posted on LinkedIn. One million views in one post. 100K followers in three months. Then he went full-time. [14:30] - The “Go All In” Myth If you can’t build something while employed, you probably can’t build it without a paycheck either. Financial pressure makes you desperate. He overlapped a fintech job, ghostwriting, and personal content before making the leap. [20:45] - What “Master AI Before It Masters You” Means Not fear-mongering about replacement. The real problem: average output is now free and instant. A $1,000 article from 2021 looks like “just some words” today. The only path forward is taste so specific it can’t be replicated for free. [26:00] - Engineers Are Breaking Down Since Claude Code’s Opus 4.5 release, thousands of engineers are posting on Twitter asking what they’re even for. They can build anything in hours. Problem: they don’t know what to build. The excuse is gone. What remains: do you have taste? [30:00] - Play Like a Kid Every cover on his newsletter features a child. Pick one task. Use one AI. Don’t obsess over tools. Get small wins first. We’re monkeys who need rewards. [34:00] - AI Forces Us to Be More Human When Excel files and basic writing become automated, we go deeper. In the 1900s, 90% of Americans worked in food production. They couldn’t conceive of refrigeration, let alone the internet. Freed from survival labor, humans built things nobody predicted. Same pattern now. [40:00] - “I Am Just a Text File” He spent two hours answering Claude’s questions about his opinions, boundaries, writing style. Result: a markdown file, 1,000 lines, that captures his taste. Upload it anywhere, and AI writes like him. His grandchildren could talk to digital grandpa. [43:00] - Animating His Grandmother His mom lost her mother at 12. A handful of black-and-white photos. Ruben colorized them, created two-second animations. Sent one. His mom called crying. Her mother was moving. [49:00] - Substack Must Stay Protected On LinkedIn, maybe half his comments are AI-generated now. He compares giving everyone AI tools to handing a rifle to a monkey. Paid access and ID verification are coming. He’s not against it. Two Quotes “The more you forget about making money, the more money you make. Real traction doesn’t happen when you focus on the money.” “Master AI before it masters you really means master it before you’re just average. Not because you’ll be replaced, but because why should anyone pay for your skill if average is free?” What You Can Do Today 1. Build your taste file. Spend an hour answering questions about your opinions, boundaries, what you’d never say, how you’d phrase things. Save it as a document. Upload it to your AI projects. 2. Pick one AI task and play. Not the perfect tool. Not comprehensive mastery. One thing. Approach it like a nine-year-old with a video game. Resources Mentioned * Steve Jobs’ Stanford Commencement Speech (Ruben watches it yearly) * Claude Code with Opus 4.5 * Cursor ($20B AI coding company) Where to Find Ruben Substack newsletter, twice weekly, Wednesday and Sunday. 100 breakdowns per year. Most is free. One Thing I’m Still Thinking About Ruben said his grandchildren could have real conversations with digital grandpa someday. Then he paused and said he doesn’t know how to feel about it. Neither do I. What about you? How This Was Made This recap was built by uploading the show transcript as well as rambling my own thoughts via Wisprflow into a Claude custom project, containing our voice guidelines, then edited through four rounds: structure, skeptic audit, linguistic cleanup, and open-ending. The conversation took 56 minutes. The recap took longer. Thanks to Sam Illingworth for the tips on skepticism, and liguistics :) Ruben’s right. Taste takes time even when AI does the typing. Get full access to Sacred Business Flow at love.sacredbusinessflow.com/subscribe

    57 min
  8. From Locked Out of Her Country to 13,000+ Subscribers w/ Veronica Llorca-Smith

    JAN 14

    From Locked Out of Her Country to 13,000+ Subscribers w/ Veronica Llorca-Smith

    What happens when a 15-year corporate veteran at Apple and Estee Lauder gets stranded in a foreign country during a pandemic with two young daughters, her husband and dog stuck on the other side of the world? She plants a lemon tree. This week on Sacred Business Stories, we sat down with Veronica Llorca-Smith, a Substack Bestseller, Penguin author, and international speaker who turned rejection into reinvention. At 41, with no network, no personal brand, and recruiters who couldn’t see her value, Veronica made a decision that changed everything: “If people can’t see my value, then I have to show it to the world.” Three years later, she runs what she calls a “Frankenstein business”: four published books, a 13,000+ subscriber community, digital courses, coaching programs, and speaking gigs across the globe. All built from scratch. All built in public. But here’s what I really appreciated about Veronica that I learned from this conversation. Veronica doesn’t wait until she has clarity to take action. She takes action to find clarity. That shift alone might be worth the price of admission. Every week, we write about getting clear, getting visible, and getting paid. Inner patterns and outer strategy. Join 25,000+ creators & entrepreneurs: Show Notes [00:00] The Origin Story Veronica spent 15 years climbing the corporate ladder at companies like Apple and Estee Lauder. She thought that was her path. Then the pandemic happened, and she found herself locked out of Hong Kong for over a year with her young daughters (ages 3 and 5) while her husband stayed behind with their dog. In Australia, she hit a wall. No one valued her experience. No network. No credibility. [06:00] The Lemon Tree Philosophy The name isn’t just clever branding. It’s the core of everything Veronica teaches. “When life gives you lemons, not if, but when, use the seeds not just to make lemonade, but to plant your lemon tree.” Her first book, The Lemon Tree Mindset, came from documenting her own corporate-to-solopreneur transition. She turned her chaos into a framework others could follow. That’s the power of building in public. [08:00] Being Your Own Boss Doesn’t Make You a Good One This hit home. Veronica shared a recent post where she reflected on how solopreneurs often treat themselves worse than the worst corporate boss they ever had. Working while sick. Showing up when they’re having a terrible day. No self-compassion. No boundaries. Her insight: being your own boss is about setting frameworks and protecting your time. Nobody else will do that for you. [12:00] Clarity Comes From Doing, Not Thinking Most people want to find clarity before they start. Veronica flips this entirely. “You find clarity by doing things. You start writing and very often you have these mental chaos and ideas start to become something or nothing. But doing helps you find clarity.” She didn’t have a niche when she started. She just wrote. First on LinkedIn. Then Medium. Then pitching podcasts. The shape of her business emerged through action, not planning. [16:00] Fear Is a Feature, Not a Bug Veronica intentionally puts herself in situations that scare her. Every year since starting, she’s done something she’s never done before: live sessions, launching in Spanish (her native language, which gave her more imposter syndrome than English), digital courses, bigger stages. Her reframe: Instead of asking “what’s the worst that could happen,” she asks “what’s the best that could happen.” If you’re not uncomfortable, you’re probably just playing in your comfort zone. [23:00] The Multilingual Business Challenge This got interesting. Veronica speaks six languages and now runs her Substack in both English and Spanish. She’s noticed more creators asking how to write across multiple languages. But here’s the twist: she found more imposter syndrome in her native language than in English. “In my own language, it’s like, oh, this is not okay.” In English, she could afford mistakes as a foreigner. Carolina related. She’s writing in Portuguese now and says it feels like discovering a different version of herself. [28:00] Authentic Connection in the AI Era Polished content used to signal success. Now everyone can make polished content. So what actually differentiates you? Being human. Being real. Sharing the mess. Veronica flew to Singapore for a book launch that was, in her words, “a bloody disaster.” Less than 10 people showed up. They didn’t even have book copies. She could have pretended it didn’t happen. Instead, she wrote about it. The response? People thanked her for being real. It made the whole thing achievable and human. [36:00] Two Tactical Strategies That Actually Work When we asked for something practical, Veronica delivered: Collaboration. Find someone to collaborate with. Guest posts, live sessions, interviews, panel discussions. She runs collaboration days where her premium members share what’s working, pitch ideas, and partner up. This alone has driven massive growth. Public Speaking. Even if it’s not your main thing, becoming comfortable with your voice opens new possibilities. Webinars, masterclasses, cohorts, corporate workshops. She filmed her digital course on an iPhone at home. Not polished. Just real. Key Quotes “When life gives you lemons, not if, but when, use the seeds not just to make lemonade, but to plant your lemon tree.” “Being your own boss doesn’t make you a good one.” “You find clarity by doing things. Very often people want to find clarity first and then do things. What I have found is that you often find clarity by doing things.” “Instead of asking what’s the worst that could happen, I tend to think what’s the best that could happen.” “We are not a newsletter. We are not a writing business. We’re a people business.” Resources Mentioned The Lemon Tree Mindset by Veronica Llorca-Smith (Amazon Bestseller, Finalist in 2024 International Book Awards) The Anti-Procrastinator by Veronica Llorca-Smith (Penguin) Where to Find Veronica Substack (English): The Lemon Tree Mindset Substack (Spanish): El Limonero Website: veronicallorcasmith.com LinkedIn: Veronica Llorca-Smith Veronica invites you to not just read her content, but get involved. Join the chat. Show up for live sessions. Her premium community runs regular collaboration masterminds where members share what’s working in 2026 and pitch partnership ideas. Ready to Transform Your Patterns into Breakthrough Results? Here’s what we’ve found working with hundreds of entrepreneurs: the gap between knowing what to do and actually doing it isn’t a strategy problem. It’s a pattern problem. The same patterns that show up in your personal life, the ones that keep you stuck in analysis mode or avoiding visibility, those show up in your business too. Everything is connected. That’s why we created The Sacred Business Harmony Map. It identifies which of the 9 Frequencies is blocking your growth and shows you exactly what to work on first. If you’d like to explore working together, book your free Integration Call. We’ll walk through your results, connect the dots between your inner patterns and outer challenges, and show you what working with us could look like. Because your breakthrough isn’t just about business success. It’s about becoming who you’re meant to be through the vehicle of your work. Book Your Integration Call Here → Thank You Thank you Anfernee, Rocelyn ♡, The Messy Middle, Monika Rawat, and many others who joined us live from around the world: São Paulo, Hong Kong, and everywhere in between. And to Veronica, thank you for sharing not just the wins but the challenges, the doubts, and the messy middle. That’s what makes this real. P.S. Missed previous episodes? All our Sacred Business Stories recaps are available here. We invite you to explore. What’s Next: Hit the subscribe button if you haven’t already. Every week we bring you conversations with entrepreneurs who are building businesses that honor both their values and their vision for life. Get full access to Sacred Business Flow at love.sacredbusinessflow.com/subscribe

    43 min
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  • Creator
    Align With Your Deepest Truth
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    41
  • Rating
    Clean
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    © Sacred Business Flow
  • Show Website
    Sacred Business Stories