Your Brand as a Spiritual Practice
Oct 13, 2023When you start building a brand, you begin a journey of deeper, transformative self discovery. As an entrepreneur, our businesses are one of our greatest spiritual teachers, showing us patterns that no longer serve us and uncovering opportunities for expansion into our most aligned selves.
For me, showing up daily for over a decade as the face of my brand has been a journey towards becoming more whole, more fulfilled, and more fully expressed. It has required me to look at my dark, shadowy places and do the inner work to uproot old beliefs that have kept me stuck and playing small. It has inspired me to get crystal clear about who I am, what I stand for, and how I want to be of service in my own unique way. It’s been the thing anchoring me into alignment with myself and my greater purpose in life.
6 Ways Your Brand is a Spiritual Practice
As the face of a personal brand, your brand is a kind of mirror into your inner world. Your brand and business goes way deeper than strategy and income… it morphs into a deep spiritual practice.
I want to be clear about what we’re talking about here, so let’s define the term ‘spiritual’ before going further. Here, 'spiritual' doesn’t allude to religious practices or beliefs. It signifies connection to our most genuine selves, an alignment with our core essence, and a journey towards becoming fuller, more holistic individuals.
Now, let’s explore how embracing your brand as a spiritual teacher can transform not just your brand, but your life. Here’s a closer look at some of the ways your brand can be your spiritual teacher.
Your Brand Teaches You the Lessons You Need to Learn to Grow
Personal brands are so unique in the way they represent us. Typically, your brand values, beliefs, mission, and personality will align seamlessly with your own. When you genuinely embody your brand and show up in your truth, you create a much deeper, more purposeful connection between you, your brand, and your audience.
However, your brand will also show you the places you aren’t in alignment, giving you opportunities for growth unlike any other. Almost like it knows where you need to evolve, and it has the ability to deliver those exact lessons you need to learn to get to the next level. Then once you think you’ve learned the lesson, it will present the opportunity one more time, just to be sure.
In the early days of my entrepreneurial journey, I struggled with something that I have seen many of us face – charging for my services.
With every invoice I sent, price I shared, or offer I pitched, I felt heavy and fearful. I was so afraid of people perceiving me as “just being in it for the money,” when in reality that was so far from the truth! This is something I was constantly worrying about, energy I was constantly putting out into the universe.
Interestingly, this very fear was soon reflected right back at me. People in my community questioned my fees, voicing the very doubts I was internally struggling with. This was perhaps the greatest lesson in manifestation I’ve seen in action – it really highlighted for me that what we focus on, whether positive OR negative, has a way of finding its way back to us.
This sticking point was a pivotal moment of growth for me. It gave me the opportunity to work through the messy, tangled belief that I couldn’t charge for my services. It showed me that it’s okay to stand strong in my convictions and understand the value I bring to the world. It even helped me realize that this is something I can help my audience overcome too.
This was the universe's nudge to push me out of my comfort zone. It was a crash course in authenticity and a reminder that our businesses, just like life, often show us where we need to grow the most.
Your Brand Gives You Purpose Beyond Profit
As service-based entrepreneurs, we often go into business for deeper reasons than just earning an income. This gives us the perfect opportunity to infuse our brands with a deeper purpose, to share our ‘why’ with our audience, and breathe life into the possibilities that present us.
For me, the real 'why' transcends monetary gains; it's about creating genuine transformations in people's lives.
But, my why has evolved over the years, just as I have.
I didn’t start out with a passion for helping heart-led entrepreneurs and service-based brands communicate their gifts in ways that their audience understands and values (and wants to pay them for!). This ‘why’ was made clear by my brand over the years.
I believe that coaches and healers have such a transformative gift to share, one that the world really needs. But, I know that they often struggle to communicate that incredible gift in a way that their ideal clients understand. This just leads to staying stuck in cycles of poverty and poverty mindset because they’re struggling to take their ideas and tools and present them in a clear, approachable way. I saw time and time again that service-based, purpose-driven entrepreneurs struggled with these things, and that I was actually quite good at them.
Over time, my brand revealed this deeper ‘why’ to me, which has ultimately allowed me to live in closer alignment with my greater purpose, feeling more confident and fulfilled in both my business and life.
Your Brand Gives You the Opportunity to Know Yourself More Deeply
To build a personal brand, you must have a clear understanding of who you are and the value you offer. If you’re confused about that, everyone else will be too. That being said, we are always growing and evolving, and that’s a great thing! But, as we change and grow, so must our brands.
My own journey through entrepreneurship has been a testament to this evolution.
In the early days of my business, I was a completely different person with different priorities and perspectives. The brand I created and shared with the world then was reflective of who I was at that moment. But as time passed and experiences shaped me, I began to see areas within myself and my brand that yearned for growth and deeper understanding. It was only through nurturing and leaning into those areas that I was able to build a brand that aligned with my deeper truths.
This isn’t to say that our first iterations of our brands are inauthentic or unworthy.
We do the best with what we have at the time, and as we grow and change, we evolve our brands along with us – which is exactly what my branding process is all about: taking you through the process of understanding who you are, and then helping you cultivate the confidence to get visible and share your message so you can help the people who need you most.
Let’s pause for a second… Does hearing that word ‘visible’ make you feel a little unsettled? If so, you aren’t alone. I get it!
It’s very vulnerable, and can bring up a lot of feelings, to be so visible in the public eye. But, when you know yourself so deeply, when you know your character and motivations, being visible won’t be so scary, because whatever others think or say about you won’t have the power to uproot what you know to be true about yourself. This is why it’s so important to do the work at the beginning of the branding process of figuring out who you are, so you can communicate that in a way that inspires others.
Your Brand Makes Sure You Know Your Values and Live in Alignment With Them
Every brand has its distinct set of values and principles that act as the undercurrent for every decision made. These are the beliefs that breathe life into your brand – beliefs that come from you at the core.
Whether it's championing sustainability, advocating for community welfare, or any other core belief, your values ensure every strategy, interaction, and action resonates with what you hold dear. Everything you do in your brand has an intentionality behind it, one that resonates with your mission on a deeper level.
As the face of our personal brand, living out these values through our brands has the potential to bring us a much greater sense of fulfillment in our lives.
When we aren’t living or working in alignment with our values, we’ll always have that deep internal sense that something is off or missing, and we won’t feel completely aligned with our truth and integrity.
The values we embody impact our potential for attracting clients, because when other people see us as standing strong and living in alignment with our values, they’re inspired by that. They want to work with us when we present ourselves that way, especially when our values align with theirs.
Living in alignment with your values not only brings you more purpose and fulfillment into your life, but it also helps you make a greater impact and be of more service because people who want to work with you can see exactly what you stand for.
Your Brand Inspires You With a Cause Greater Than Yourself
An entrepreneur's journey is not about feeding the ego, seeking applause, or craving validation (at least not the entrepreneurs I work with!). It's about acknowledging that there's a greater purpose in life beyond just monetary pursuits and day-to-day responsibilities.
It's a genuine desire to be of value, to create a lasting impact, and to sow seeds of positive change in the lives touched by your brand. This is where depth, purpose, and meaning converge, creating a brand that not only stands out but also stands for something greater than itself.
For an example of this in action, let’s look at something that makes many people feel at least a little nervous: public speaking. It’s not uncommon to worry about saying the wrong thing, or even forgetting what to say completely. BUT, these are very self-centered worries (even if you are not explicitly trying to be self-centered).
When we shift our perspective AWAY from us, and TOWARDS service, it’s no longer about us as much as it is about our audience, community, and clients. Rather than assigning a meaning of failure to stumbling over your words, remember that you are showing up in service – it’s not about speaking perfectly, it’s about being of value.
Just think about what’s possible when you can get out of your own way, when you can stop worrying about messing up or about how you’re perceived and start focusing on the ways you can serve your audience. Just let go and show up to serve. These fears are keeping you from living and working in alignment with your fullest potential.
Your Brand Allows for Reflection & Deeper Connection With Your Self
In the daily grind, it's easy to lose sight of our brand's spiritual journey. I've been there, all caught up in the hustle, feeling misaligned but unsure what I could do about it because I was just so busy with everything else. Embarking on an entrepreneurial journey isn't just about building a business; it's about forging a deeper connection with yourself.
As I look back on my journey, I recognize that alignment with my true authentic self was something I’ve been working towards all along, whether I knew it or not.
My brand has helped me expand in ways I could’ve never imagined, allowing me to look deeper at myself and serve my community in ways I didn’t even know were possible. It created the space for reflection and growth, and invited in intuition.
It allowed me to venture into the darker recesses of my experiences, confronting those fears and insecurities that have, at times, held me back both personally and in businesses.
A Look Into My Brand's Evolution
In the early days of my business I presented a version of myself that, while genuine for that time, has since evolved. This doesn’t make that initial portrayal of my brand wrong or inauthentic, like we mentioned above.
The brand I had initially created was a reflection of a past self. A self that carried beliefs that weren’t even entirely mine and that was reacting (subconsciously) to early wounding as a child. Today, I can say with certainty that I am not the same person I was back then.
But one thing that’s always been at the core of my brand is in the name: ‘daring.’ Initially, I may not have fully infused my brand with the true gravity of what 'daring' means to me – honestly, I may not have even known or understood the full extent of the meaning of the word.
In the beginning, ‘daring’ simply meant to have the guts to take the path less traveled in life (by becoming an entrepreneur) … which is still an idea that I resonate with.
But now, after much introspection and growth, 'daring' has come to symbolize something far more profound and expansive than it did back in those early days. Now, ‘daring’ means having the courage to look deep into the shadowed corners of my experiences, confront them, and emerge on the other side more aligned, more genuine, and more myself. I believe this is what it takes to build a brand that’s not only successful on the outside, but successful on the inside too … this is what it takes to be a true Daring Fempreneur.
Nurturing Business as a Spiritual Practice Today
In the entrepreneurial world, there's the ever-present urge to keep moving, to keep doing. Yet, something I've learned over time is the importance of creating space, of allowing moments of pause, of allowing the time to reflect.
We need to carve out moments to turn inward, to not just think, but to feel and understand the trajectory of our brands and how that aligns with our deeper purposes. We need to make sure we’re working towards expressing our truths without getting stuck in the day-to-day grind of entrepreneurship.
One thing that’s helped me immensely with this is the Monk Manual. It ensures that I am continually checking in, gauging whether my brand's actions and decisions are in harmony with its spiritual essence.
Another thing I’ve cherished throughout this journey is my daily practice of waking up and sitting on my meditation cushion. It may sound simple, but this allows me the space, time, energy to sit in reflection, sit with my feelings, and start to forge a path forward – creating space for reflection while also making time to just be.
As we dare to dive deeper into our inner selves, we build brands that aren't just successful, but that are soulfully fulfilling. We bring our values and visions to life through the work we do. We make a greater impact in the world. For me, my brand has become a vessel through which I can live out my larger mission in a more impactful way.
If you’re ready to build your brand with a pro by your side, The Impact Tribe is here for you!! Through coaching, courses, and community, I’ll help you build a stand-out brand that represents who you are, resonates with your ideal client, and gives you what you need to make it easy for your ideal clients to hire you. What are you waiting for?! Learn more and join us today at the link below.