Growing Pains as a Spiritual Entrepreneur
Podcast
Episode:
Growing Pains as a Spiritual Entrepreneur
by Danielle Searancke
This week’s episode is inspired by a conversation I had with my friend’s father, an avid listener and successful entrepreneur, in which he shared some of his wisdom with me. I went live to talk about the struggles that come with expansion on Instagram and my audience asked me to do a podcast episode on this topic. I’ve received so many comments about how much the live resonated with people, so I hope this episode helps you realize that you aren’t alone. It’s okay to struggle and feel pressure when things are going well.
I receive criticism when I talk about the shadow side of this work because it can be interpreted as complaining when I am in a place of privilege. However, part of using this podcast to share authentically means sharing the full spectrum and reality of the experience. Typically, I talk about difficult periods when I’ve completed them but I am offering this episode while I’m in the process. My hope is that you are able to feel seen, and know that I’m not looking for solutions. I know that the expansion on the other side of this struggle will be just as magical as it always is!
Though I am experiencing growing pains, I love the world of spirit, my work, and my students so much it brings me to tears. I’ve invited you to hold a vision with me, and for me, of being so supported in my work that I can just show up and teach while also feeling worthy enough of being the main character. I feel you rooting for my success and I thank you for your support.
Episode:
Growing Pains as a Spiritual Entrepreneur
Spirit School Podcast
In this episode:
I have shared the recent expansion of Spirit School including the physical school
Episodes talking about the shadow side of the business have been met with some criticism
If I am sharing authentically, I think that it's important to not only share about the good things
I typically don’t share my struggles before I have found solutions for them
I am talking about my current growing pains of expanding as a spiritual entrepreneur
Hopefully you can avoid them and have your own unique growing pains
Early on, I only had my home or my friend’s to host my development circles
The people coming to my first in-person events at Spirit School came to my circles
I built it in an incredibly bougie way and wanted to go big right out of the gate
I did have to scale back quite a bit and we went still went over budget
The debt from going over budget is some of the pressure I’m facing
As a teacher, you become walking context for what you teach
This is coming up as I prepare for the Heal That Money Shit class series
Adding the physical space doubled the cost of running my business
It also expands my potential for earning more with less effort
I have been led in every step up until this moment and I will be okay
All the tools I’ve been learning are actually having to start to be put into practice
I have created the platform for growth but haven’t expanded yet
Everything is going out and not everything is coming in yet to its highest potential
There is a lot of discomfort for the nervous system in our human in that void
Time is more valuable than money to me and I’ve disrespected my own time
It’s been hard to find someone ahead of me in this space to look to as a mentor
I was privileged to have someone sit with me and share their wisdom
They told me to prioritize my time on unique things I do that people can’t do for me
One growing pain is seeing myself as a main character and enlisting support I need
I would love to just show up on Zoom to teach, record podcasts, and go live
There are a lot of intricate things like accounting tasks that only I can do
I’ve started to pass tasks to my team that are easy for me, but time consuming
It takes a lot of time to manage details like inspections to get Spirit School operational
I’m having to find a new way of being in my business to hand these things off
I don’t have any sense of a balanced lifestyle
On top of regular business, I’ve had health crises, emotional situations, the retreat and the build
I went from having time to myself regularly last year to only having time off when I was sick
One of the things Bart suggested was structured hours to work with more intention
Being an entrepreneur and owning a business is 24/7 and intertwined with home
I give my team an extra hour each week in their invoices for the mental space I take up
I need to be responsive when my team is working evenings and weekends
Now that I have an office I will be working school hours while my kids are young
I don't know many entrepreneurs who are still entrepreneurs today because it is a hustle
I feel duped by people promoting a lifestyle of ease and only working 4 hours a week
I struggle to leave myself time for the envisioning time required to create new things
I am capturing this as a vault for myself and don’t have the solutions
I am in this middle ground of what was and what will be and it is uncomfortable
Reflecting on past spirit messages, I still catch myself pacifying the discomfort
Though I empathize with people who have given up, I’m still moving forward
I love my work and the world of spirit so much, and I invite you to hold a vision with me
I want to be so supported in my work that I can just show up as the main character and teach
There is shame that makes me feel I have to work harder now that I have more
I compensate my team well because it creates more abundance and opportunity
I feel you rooting for my success and I thank you for your support
I am wholeheartedly rooting for your success as well because your success is my success
Spirit School Links
The Initiation 2.0 Summer 2023 Registration: https://www.squamishmedium.com/mediumship-advancement
Spirit School Collective: https://www.squamishmedium.com/spiritschoolcollective
Join us on the FREE Spirit School platform: https://myspiritschoolcollective.com/plans/
Visit Spirit School at https://www.squamishmedium.com/ for all courses and upcoming programs
View full transcripts of podcast episodes at https://www.squamishmedium.com/blog
I was interviewed by MysticMag
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[00:00:00] Hello everyone and welcome back to Spirit School. I am very
excited to be here for another episode with you all. I went on Instagram
live because I just had a situation where one of my avid listeners, a
really big fan of mine, who is also the father of one of my best friends,
just graciously lent me 45 [00:01:00] minutes of his time, his wisdom, his
inspiration, to help me while I'm in a little bit of a time of struggle right
now.
And so I wanted to record this podcast interview at the request of my
Instagram Live avid listeners, the people who are always checking in
with me, coming on the impromptu times I show up on Instagram live or
in Spirit School live, and share a little bit more about the struggles I'm
kind of going through right now, too. Because obviously you guys have
been hearing for a while that you know, things are going really well at
Spirit School. We've had a huge expansion. We had our first retreat. The
programs are still selling as much as they always were. The membership
has been sustaining at over a hundred people for the past two years. I
have a school now. I have this physical location that is a whole other
sense of expansion. And half the people who came to the retreat have
signed up again to come back next year. And more and more people are
coming in all the time.
And so I'm [00:02:00] sharing with you guys often about the successes
and how everything is going absolutely amazing. And I have complained
in the past. I have done some podcast episodes on the shadow side of
this business or I talk about the different things I'm struggling with and
I'm, I'm usually met with a sense of criticism, not in a big way, but they
are the only episodes I do receive hostile messages about, or some
really dark criticism calling me a martyr, or calling me privileged
complainer. And so I do feel very hesitant to share about my struggles,
not only because of the criticism that I do get from them. And again, it's
not an astronomical amount, it just happens to be the loudest, and it just
happens to be the only episodes that I get kind of ugly messages about.
And I'm like, okay, there's like two different ways that we could play this.
It's like either I'm sharing vulnerably and [00:03:00] authentically with you
all, no matter what, and you just gotta kind of like hear me and whatever
I talk about, just like take it or leave it. It's totally up to you. But I think
that it's important to not only share about the great things that are going
on and like letting you guys know about that, but like also sharing a bit of
like the things I'm struggling with as well. And I'm in a huge place right
now of being on the precipice of like really big expansion, and the
expansion is already happening, but also there's like this really odd set
of complications that come with this expansion that I think need to be
talked about as well.
So if you can listen to this episode as a best friend sitting there with a
cup of tea. I'm just talking. I'm not looking to be rescued. I'm not looking
for all the solutions. That's the other caveat I wanna have around this
episode I'm gonna be sharing with you guys is, this episode is just me
talking. [00:04:00] Typically I bring to you the things that I've gone
through and the solutions I have found for them, but today's a little bit
different because I've been feeling a little bit more inspired to share
things more raw in the moment, knowing that I don't have all the
solutions. I'm not coming at you at the end of this episode with seven
steps on how to rectify this. I'm coming at you with an episode on the
growing pains that come with expanding as a lightworker, and expanding
as a spiritual entrepreneur. How about that? So what I'm gonna share
with you today are some of the growing pains that I am currently
undergoing and experiencing as part of the expansion that has been
happening for the past six, seven months.
So, how do we even start this? If it comes across as complaining, I'm
sorry, but not sorry. That's not how I'm intending it. I'm just trying to
share because I know that there are so many of you looking to me in
what I am creating and wanting to [00:05:00] maybe create something
similar. And so then if I could talk about some of these things, then
maybe I can save you some of the growing pains that I'm having, so you
can go on to have your own unique set of growing pains, so that we
continue to share these things and expand in a light working space not
repeating the same lessons, but having new ones so that we continue to
expand and grow this space. Sound fair? All right? So let's just agree.
You're gonna take what you take, you're gonna leave the rest behind.
You're gonna go on to have your own lessons and not take on mine, but
hopefully take some wisdom and do things a little bit differently for your
own expansion, your own growth.
So going back to early, early days in development, I kind of always felt
like I would have a studio space and I always felt like I would have a
place that people could gather and do like little home development
circles. And essentially that's what I created in 2017 when I [00:06:00]
launched Squamish Medium, was home development circles. And we
would meet in my kitchen and we would have a great time together. And
a couple times I would even rent my friend's house. She's a single mom
and there wasn't a whole lot of places in Squamish actually available
that could hold a circle, believe it or not. A lot of Squamish builds are
long and skinny, and it might work for people to sit in theater style, but
you know, I'm a First Nations woman. I love being in circles. Everything
has to be a circle with us. So I want to sit in circle. So the only space I
could do that was my home or my friend's home. So I would actually rent
her space and do my home circles there, and it was a win win-win
situation for everyone. Then the pandemic happens. And I remember on
March 16th, March 18th was the lockdown. On March 16th, I had my
final home circle. And funny enough, the people who were in that circle
are coming to my first event [00:07:00] in Spirit School, Sheila V. So it's
kind of funny that now I'm doing in-person stuff again. It's literally almost
exactly the same people as when I closed my last home development
circle in 2020. It's just a full circle moment here.
But creating this space for Spirit School, your girl did not skimp out on a
thing. So not only did I pick the most bougie location in Squamish for my
school, I built it in an incredibly bougie and comfortable way. It is
designed to the top. It has the best chairs. It has the best lighting. I
wanted to go big first thing outta the gate. And that's something that one
of my assistants, Danielle, mentioned to me. She said, you know, very
few people would go this big right away. And the funny thing is there was
no other option for me. I did not see [00:08:00] another way of doing this.
It actually did not occur to me to start off small scale and work my way
up. And I'm not saying I regret that decision. It is what it is. The decision
has been made. Now, keeping in mind the budget did go very out of
budget, and I did have to scale back quite a bit through this whole
experience building the school. I did have to scale back on the
backsplash, on some of the custom carpentry, carpets, designing a
whole office, the furniture for the spare office, signage. I wanted to have
this beautiful glow signage for Spirit School that you could see from far
away, but I had to scale back. I can't afford the glow signage. I need to
scale back a bit.
So all this to say, there was a lot of compromise that happened in this
journey, which was effortless in a way, but we still managed to be pretty
over budget. And that's kind of the aftermath that I'm dealing with now.
And some of the pressure that I'm facing is going into debt and being in
a dream. Going for my dreams and being okay going into debt,
[00:09:00] going into these dreams. And so there is that, that I'm kind of
growing into and becoming accustomed to.
And of course, as I'm about to build out and develop my course series
on Heal That Money Shit, which by the time this podcast airs, on that
Tuesday will be the first of four classes. I'm doing a four class series on
this. So, of course, when you sign up to be a teacher, you sign up to be
walking context for the things that you're teaching. So here I am in a
place, in the grip, in this growing pain of expansion where I have
essentially doubled the cost of running my business by having a physical
location. But I've also opened up the opportunity for expansion and
being able to earn more, and earn more with less effort, in holding mini
retreats, and workshops, and renting the space out, and like, there's just
a lot of opportunity here. But of course, one of the most uncomfortable
growing pains that I'm having to navigate as part of this [00:10:00]
expansion is like the finances and the money. And so I find it just funny,
not funny, and synchronistic that at a time where I am finally stepping up
to teach what I have learned about money trauma, about the trauma of
money, about our relationship to finances in a system that we are not
able to shift individually, but have to coexist in and thrive in, that I am
facing now some of the deepest wounds that I have ever faced in my
life.
And not to say I haven't got an ulcer and I haven't lost sleep over this. I
also know I'm going to be okay. I also know that I have been led in every
step up until this moment, and that has not changed. That has not
shifted. Spirit has not taken me this far just to take me this far. I am
continuously being divinely guided and I will be okay. I know that.
[00:11:00] I feel that in the depth, and I do not deny that in even the most
minuscule of ways. But even knowing that does not take away the
nervous system response that I have in my current reality. This is what
has been very interesting for me as part of these growing pains, is all
these tools that I have been learning over the past few years are actually
having to start to be put to practice, and I am starting to have to be my
own mentor, my own coach, my own best friend in staying in a thrive
state while I'm in this awkward growth phase.
And this growth phase is actually quite interesting because it's a space
of expansion, but I haven't expanded yet. I have created the platform to
be able to expand, which came at a cost of not just finances, but also
time, energy, capacity, creativity. I have three assistants now. I have
three people supporting me, one [00:12:00] payroll employee, my first
ever payroll employee, and my two contractors who are like my right
hands in my business, Andrea and Danielle. And so, I'm kind of in this
phase of this awkward growth phase, when it comes to the finances, of
everything going out and not everything coming in yet to its highest
potential.
And that is a very interesting place to be, and not a place to be that I
have been in too many times before in my spiritual entrepreneurship
journey. I've always been like, oh, I'm earning this now. I'm able to do
this. And now I'm in this growth phase of, okay, I went big on a big
dream, and I know it's going to be okay, but it's gonna take some time to
build, and build up, and build out. So there is a lot of discomfort for the
nervous system in our human when we are still sitting in that void, in that
gap, if you will, in that void. I've heard some people talk about it as a
waiting room. I'm literally living [00:13:00] and existing in this void, but
that is still requiring a lot of activity for me. So that's the finance piece,
and that's gonna be fine, and you guys will hear me in a year from now,
what were you worried about? There was nothing to worry about. I
agree. And in hindsight, I think that that's gonna be a very incredible
experience for me. But I'm in the grip right now. I'm in it. There's no other
way to describe this other than being in it.
Another growing pain that I'm having right now is around time. Now, time
to me is definitely more important than any amount of money. I've
always said that. That's always gonna be true for me. But I have to say
that I have been very disrespectful with my time, especially with myself.
And what I was telling somebody earlier who was generous enough to
sit with me to talk about business, who's very far ahead of where I am in
business. And [00:14:00] that's actually very hard for me to find and has
been hard for me to find in this space is somebody in a similar space,
whether it's spirituality, mediumship, whatever, who is far enough ahead
of me in the business side that I can look up to as a mentor. I just
haven't found that in this space. If you know someone, please DM me
their name because I probably just am not aware of them. But a lot of
people are looking to me and asking to pick my brain and I don't really
have that out there in the world.
So I was privileged enough, and blessed enough, to sit with somebody
today who really held that mentor role with me, and understood what I
was going through, and was just so generous with their wisdom and their
knowledge. And they were talking about me finding my uniqueness and
staying in that unique space, and staying in the space of of prioritizing
my time to just show up in what I'm unique at and what nobody else can
do for me. And I had this growing pain epiphany. And I said to him, I
[00:15:00] said, you know, the funny thing is, is that in my career, up
until three years ago, up until March, 2020, I have always been the
support person to the main character. I have always been the person
that helped support the main character. I'm always the support person.
And so one of the big growing pains I have is seeing myself as that main
character and then allowing those people who I have trusted to support
me, support me. Because I can still be quite controlling, and not because
I don't trust anyone else, but because I don't wanna be a burden, and I
don't want to dump stuff on other people, because I'm always that
person. I've always been the person that the executive or the main
character can dump on to make sure that their life goes smoothly so that
they can show up in their genius. But one of my growing pains is seeing
myself as that main character, and then in calling and [00:16:00]
enlisting the support I need to be able to show up in my uniqueness and
use my time more intelligently so that I have more space and time to
show up in that way. Because the truth is, if I could have my life perfectly
right now, if I could have my life any which way right now, in my career
only, I would say that I would love to just show up on Zoom and teach. I
would love to show up in front of the podcast mic and just record. I would
love to show up into that session room and do my reading. I would love
to show up in front of that group and do that demonstration. I would love
to go on that Instagram live a couple times a week and show up and
share what's going on for me.
I just wanna show up and be me in front of whoever wants to listen. That
is the truth. But what happens is I have hundreds of dms, hundreds of
emails, a lot of intricate things that only I can also really do, which is
what I'm struggling [00:17:00] with, which is like the accounting, the
bookkeeping, the downloading the statements, the tagging every line
item, what it is and where it needs to be allocated. I'm lucky because my
team is really starting to predict the things that I need support with, and
things have been elevated in that sense where, you know, I've handed
over the little things like my Acuity links for workshops. I've always taken
that on myself, not because I don't trust anyone else to do it, I just never
thought of asking someone else to do that before because it's so easy
for me. It just takes me a couple seconds. But what I didn't realize is that
how little time I actually have is, because these little things need to get
done for me to do the bigger things, I get really stuck and lost in the
minutia of the little things, and of the things that are so little but
important, and the bigger things cannot be done, like teaching that class
cannot be done until people have a way of registering for that class, is
[00:18:00] learning to hand off those minutia things so that I can just
show up and teach that class.
So this is a growing pain I'm currently going through, and I'm literally
smack in the middle of, because this was an epiphany I had last month,
that I can't continue to live in this space, even though I'm good at it and
I'm effective at it, and I'm efficient at it. Right. I have this saying, I've
been saying for years where it's like, just because I can doesn't mean I
should. And so it's been really kind of like digesting some of my own
sweet medicine to realize like, I actually just cannot do this all myself. So
I'm kind of in that middle phase now of this growing pain of like handing
it off to my team, trusting that they'll be able to do it just as effectively as
me, even if it's not the same as me, and get myself to a position where I
can just show up and teach, and just show up and read, and just show
up and do my thing. And that's kind of where I hope to go. And so, that
has been very interesting. [00:19:00]
So we've covered the money, we've covered the time. The last thing I'll
say on the time is like building a school that's a physical brick and
mortar, there are so many details that go into having a place be
operational, and up and running on the up and up, that it has been so
hard to manage and keep track of. Like for example, and I know people
in my Collective are probably sick of hearing this, my membership,
because it just seems so small, but it's actually quite big, but I had to get
four different inspections to get licensed to open up here at Spirit School,
fire, water, building, plumbing. These are four different branches of the
district that I'm having to reach out to, to schedule to meet with, to get
reports from, to pass off to licensing. It has been like herding cats
because I'm like, who did I talk to? Who was this email with? Did I pass?
Where's the report? Who hasn't gotten [00:20:00] back to me? Okay, I
think I have it all together now. I'm gonna message it all off and then only
to be met with, didn't you get this done? Who's this? And I just get so
overwhelmed because it's so little but so important, and it's been so hard
to manage.
So just to give you kind of like an example of the things that are really
draining my time. And they are, keeping me from doing what I wanna do
really well. And so what I'm having to do is find a new way of being in my
business that I can hand some of these things off to be able to show up
in different ways. That's kind of my desire. That's the goal. That is one of
the most uncomfortable growing spurts I'm going through right now. And
no shade to my team because they are doing phenomenal, and
everything for me I ask and more. And yeah, we're gonna find our way.
It's just been busy and chaotic. That is all.
Now the third [00:21:00] growing pain I would talk about when it comes
to the expansion that I've recently been going through is around balance
and lifestyle. I literally, at this point in time, do not feel like I have any
sense of a lifestyle. Keeping in mind, I'm recording this on May 24th,
starting October 1st of last year, I was in four months of health crisis,
one thing after another. I had friendships that were so valuable to me,
and so important to me, completely blow up. And there was a lot of
emotional things that I went through late last year, as well as my health.
And then on top of that, negotiating the school, building the school,
making all the decisions involved in building a school, plus doing what
I'm regularly doing, plus planning my first retreat, which was wildly
successful.
I wouldn't have changed anything for [00:22:00] anything, but what
happened was, I went from last year having a lot of time off to live a
certain lifestyle, which was one of an entrepreneur that has her shit
together and to spend some time for herself to go paddle boarding, to
really only having time off when I'm sick. And there was a lot of strange
guilt that came up around that because it was like, Oh my God. I just had
Covid for three weeks and I had three weeks off, so now I have to get
back to it because I have a membership. People are expecting a certain
amount of me showing up and a certain amount of me giving my wisdom
to make their investment worthwhile and like feeling this pressure and
still managing being sick.
So between September of last year and to the day that I'm recording
this, the only time I have had off is when I have been sick. So, in saying
that, I've gotten into this habit and this way of [00:23:00] being that is
very go, go, go, go, go, just constantly responding to different things that
come up. And what I'm starting to realize seven months into this way of
being, which I'm not a fan of, is that the things never stop coming. So, do
I now then consider my life structuring it in a way differently where I
really do have office hours, I really do have an on time and an off time?
And that is actually one of the big things that this gentleman Bart was
talking to me about that I am definitely gonna be implementing is a more
structured schedule so that I have time off that is dedicated to being off.
So that when I am working, I'm working with more intentionality, I'm
working with more of a structure, and more energy. Because what I'm
struggling with right now is because there's so much to do, so many
decisions to make, so many things to get to my team to make [00:24:00]
sure that the things I've committed to are underway, like Sheila coming,
Dominic coming, Julie coming, my next retreat.
I haven't even started thinking about what I'm gonna be doing for
development circles here in Spirit School yet because I haven't had that
privilege of time to be able to envision, because not only is this weighing
on me 24/7, and that's one of the things that only full-time entrepreneurs
will understand and resonate with, is that when you have your own
business and you have something that is requiring a hundred percent of
you to thrive on, is that it is 24/7. There really is no off switch. And this is
one of the benefits of doing mediumship or something on the side of a
regular job, is because with a regular job, for the most part, they don't
pay you or compensate you to think about them afterwards. Funny
enough, I do give my team an extra hour a week in their invoicing to
think about me because I know I take up mental space for them and I
[00:25:00] want to compensate them for that mental space in taking that
up. So they get an extra hour a week just to think about me and just for
me taking up some of their mental capacity because I know that that's
how it used to be in the corporate space. But realistically, one of the big
shifts I had on balancing things when I had a job was, when I'm at work,
they get me. When I'm at home, they get me. But because my work and
my home is so intertwined now, I actually don't have a lot of separation
and balance.
And the other thing too is something that I can't really get away from, but
my team works different hours than me too. So some of my teammates,
because they have kids like work in the evenings and weekends, and so
I need to still be responsive to them when they choose to work. And
that's just the flexibility that I want to offer them because I don't expect
everyone to work the same amount of me, which is just me having to
work during school hours. But that's not what's happening. I am working
all hours, all nights, [00:26:00] because I'm not disciplined with myself
right now on separating my life.
And so now I have an office, which has only been for the past two
weeks, keep in mind. One of the growing pains that I'm going through is
shifting from an old way of being, which worked well for me for a time, of
being able to work in my home, work out of my home, and having my life
and career not be very separate. Now I'm feeling that I've grown so
much and I have so much opportunity ahead of me that I am having