Latest / Travel Agency in a Year / Day 120 - How Spirituality Changes your Business
Transcript
- Rachel K: It's day 120 of the Travel Agency in a year podcast. I'm your host Rachel K, founder of Elevate with RachelK.com, also a travel agency owner, and I'm here to help all you new and budding TAs get your act together and become the CEO of your business, even if you're under another agency. If you are 1099, you are self-employed, period. Today's episode, oh gosh, this is gonna be controversial. Hey, okay. Also my banana clip is not banana clipping. It's fine. I need to figure out how to use one of those better. Your spirituality can affect your business and how well it's doing. Let's take a moment as I readjust my banana clip thing nightmare. I we're gonna see how this turns out while I'm recording. What kind of faith do you have? Everyone's allowed to have their own kind of faith and spiritual journey. I don't know how this can apply to atheism. I've studied a lot of different religions in my lifetime. A lot. A lot, a lot. Because I was like, I don't know what I should be for a religion for like 20 years. 30 years. I started when I was about 14, 13, 7th grade. Anyway. So atheism was never one that I understood. So if you are full on atheist, you might just skip this episode and tomorrow's episode. Or you can put in the comments, geez, my chair about broke. I'm not. You can put in the comments your thoughts ⁓ regarding being an atheist and how it affects your business as well. Because the only way I can think of atheism being is your God is nothing. Like that's the only way can wrap it around my brain around it. Like you believe in nothing. So therefore your God is nothing. Like you merge back, like Pete Holmes puts this very succinctly in his standup. So you merge with your creator because when you die you become nothing. That's how I see atheism. If you have a good argument, please provide it. Anyway, so this episode is five concepts that you can reflect on to see how well your business is aligned with your spirituality. Spirituality is very fluid. You are welcome to change your thoughts on this at any time, okay? ⁓ But I don't know what your faith is. Because I don't know who's listening. And everyone's a little bit different. But concept number one. Money is spiritual. You've probably heard this. This banana clip is not banana clipping. Money is spiritual. It is very spiritual. It is the fruit of your labor. Okay? Some religions are very very very, especially like different like sub-sects of, whoopsie, Christianity. view work as ⁓ very, very good, okay? Some religions view work as a curse. But let's talk about it. I'm not gonna get like all Bible-y. I'm trying to banana clip and think how I'm gonna present this at the same time. ⁓ historically work, I think if you look at it from a biblical perspective, the word work has Greek and Latin origins and work was associated primarily with slavery. so slaves were the ones who quote unquote worked like thousands of years ago. They were the only ones who worked. Everyone else participating in creating art or engaging in commerce, they were laboring. Okay? So that's why I'm saying money is spiritual. is the fruit of your labor. People may argue, ⁓ but it's work and that's a curse. Okay, but that's the mindset of slavery. If you are a business owner, you should not be a slave to your business. Okay? It's almost like if you decided, and I do so many, okay, if you haven't been paying attention to my podcast or any of my content I've ever created, Quartz says, I liken everything to restaurants, fitness journeys, and gardening. Also raising children. Also, Sometimes car dealerships, sometimes QVC, sometimes the mall. But anyway, when it comes to your business, I often relate it to creating your systems like a fast food restaurant if you really want it to grow. And what else? Aligning your branding, like a car dealership creates their franchise agreements with the car manufacturers, their branding aligns with the car manufacturer's branding. Like not necessarily the colors or the name or anything, but the way that they conduct business aligns with that specific line of products that that car manufacturer produces. Garden, you are growing something. Raising kids, you are creating new life. Your business is like your brainchild, all right? So please understand, those are my big references when you're building a business. And I use these references, ⁓ and fitness journey is more like habit development and like being able to grow and adapt and know that you don't have to be physically whatever shape you're in now, good or bad. Same thing with your business. So back to the garden, you set out to plant a garden and let's just say it's a vegetable and herb garden. A lot of people like to do that, right? In the summertime and the time this episode's airing, most of you listening, if you are into gardening, have already started your seeds, but you gotta go, whether it's a raised garden bed or like in the soil plot of your yard or whatever, or just like a planter hanging on the window sill. You've got to make sure you got the soil right. You got to make sure the seeds right. You are laboring. You have to baby that plant. You got to water them or plants. You got to water them. You got to prune them. You don't have to, but they're going to look like crap and not produce very good fruit, right? And I'm talking about tomato plants in my brain because I feel like everyone's like, well, I'll just grow tomatoes. Everyone I know is like, I grow tomatoes and basil. Okay. Anyway, you could completely neglect it. You could not care, is this bed, garden bed, getting the right amount of sun? Is this garden bed, the nutrients in the soil going to yield the most fruit? Do I need to amend it? You could leave it all alone. You might not end up with a very good fruit, right? So the more labor you put into it, like the labor of love... pruning the plants, picking off flowers. I'm like going way hard into ⁓ trying to think with tomatoes. It depends on the variety of tomato, but if they're vining, like, do you have support for them? Do you have something for them to climb on? ⁓ That sort of thing. You got to get all that in order for it to yield the most fruit. your labor is your harvest. Your labor in your business is going to lead to the fruit of your harvest, which is going to be the income generated. So if you're sitting around complaining, imagine your business is this garden and you throw the seeds out. You didn't even like put them in the ground really. You just throw the seeds out. You bought the best seeds possible. You bought manure. You just dumped manure straight on top of grass. You throw the seeds out. And then you sit there and you complain how it's not going well because you don't have time to water it. And you have it like, let's say it's tomatoes and herbs, a lot of them are full sun. You do this underneath a tree with full knowledge that it is not in full sun. And then you just sit around and complain how nothing's going for you. And then you just abandon it. And then you're like, how come I didn't get any tomatoes this year? My neighbor got all these tomatoes. but your neighbor was caring for those plants and like setting up to make sure the nutrients in the soil would foster immense growth in those plants and they were continuously monitoring it. So sitting around complaining. curses your labor efforts because you aren't even working, you're just bitching and moaning, and therefore the flow of money coming in. Okay? Money is spiritual in the sense that it's not truly material, especially with like fiat currency that we got going on right now. And also currency, what people deemed valuable as currency has changed depending on the country, depending on the times that we're living in. Like right now we're in fiat currency. got the United States got rid of the gold standard 60 years ago. I don't know. I never experienced the gold standard. It's no longer backing the U S dollar. Right. So it used to be. So our currency has changed since the birth of our nation. money will do that. That's why it's spiritual. Because it cannot be created or just like it can be created or destroyed in an instant. It's not really a full on like fully material concept. Yes, gold and silver, precious metals do have value. And also it's very, very difficult to trade with like gold and silver. Don't worry, I did the study on this crazy, I looked into this like back in during the 08 crash and I was like, maybe I should understand this. So there are like silver bars because like I don't know how much silver is now, maybe 35 bucks an ounce. You can't buy a loaf of bread, one single loaf of bread with an ounce of silver, right? Maybe you could, but that's kind of outrageous. I don't even know how much bread costs. I don't believe in bread. This is terrible example. You can't buy a dozen eggs for an ounce of silver. You could probably buy, let's just say they're $2 a dozen. So if it's 35 math, you could buy 17 dozen eggs. Do you need 17 dozen eggs? They're probably gonna rot, right? So you got to have a way to break that all up. So it's harder to conceptualize like you can buy bigger things with gold and silver. But I know some silver bars, I'm just going on a crazy thing right now. Some silver bars have the ability to be broken up, but that's where we get anyway. What I'm saying is money is spiritual. Wealth can be created or destroyed in an instant. have personally like Like it can come out of nowhere and it can be taken away as just fat, just as quickly. So, if your path is a true calling as a travel advisor, and I'm not saying like you have to be perfect in it in every way, but if you really feel this deep call like to serve, and you feel a deep call to serve in the capacity of travel planning, or you're just learning how to be an entrepreneur as a travel advisor, and you may shift into a completely different industry, but it's still service-based, right? But you're not in it. Here's the thing. You cannot be in it for fame. You cannot be in it for wealth. You can get those things. But again, it's spiritual. So if you're all like egoically pursuing things, you'll get it at a very, very high cost. But if you go into it with like true love, like your garden, like I love you seeds, I really wanna be able to feed my family with this food, maybe feed the community with this food that I'm getting ready to grow, and I'm gonna do my best to take care of it for my family and for my community, rather than, I could sell these for five bucks a piece and make all this money, you're probably gonna have a better harvest, right? That was just point number one, there's five. This is gonna be a long episode. Trying to get you to understand like money is energy and it's spiritual energy. And just because you're making a lot of money doesn't mean you are like ⁓ good spiritually because it can come from good or bad energies, okay? Number two, take care of yourself and others. Do you ever respect for dignity? of everyone else? I know people are total pains in the butts. Some people are very rude. But do you just like wash them like, well they're just fucking idiots. You're gonna get angry sometimes, right? That's gonna happen. And you're gonna be like, I cannot stand these people. But do you then assume everyone else is just gonna be just as stupid or annoying? No, you don't. So most of you do have a respect for life and dignity of everyone from all walks of life. ⁓ do you believe in solidarity? Do you? And do you understand that the lowest jobs are just as important as the highest? And this is another reason why I teach not only in this podcast, but in the success circle to have an understanding of every part of your business before you start delegating it out. A, so you don't get ripped off by some shenanigan, magoo person who's like, ⁓ yeah, I could totally do this for you. But B, you can understand how integral, even the lowest job, even hiring someone to come clean your house because you're doing so much business as a travel advisor that they have to come scrub your toilets, how great that is, and how important that is for your health. Like you need to understand that is what I'm saying. This should be understood regardless of anyone's political leanings or any kind of events, the overall markets, anything going on politically, the stock market. Like this should be understood. This is, you respect everyone. You don't have to like people. You don't have to talk to them. You respect everyone. You understand that even if you get to be this big successful advisor, you were once that lowly new TA who had no idea what they were doing. And there's no reason to shit on them because they're like trying to learn and may say something really stupid. We've all been there. Okay, point number three, so much growth. often incorporates your spiritual advancement. And when you are an entrepreneur and you are self-employed and you are on your own, you have got to have a growth mindset. Don't get into the toxic side of the growth mindset where you're never good enough. And it is very important and it will advance not only like your skills, abilities, communication, whatever, but it's also going to advance your soul, essentially. Right? Right. Number four, making a profit isn't a bad thing, but also know it doesn't elevate your spiritual status. You're not gonna go to heaven because you're a billionaire. You're not gonna go to hell because you're a billionaire or whatever you believe in for the afterlife. It is like just a reflection of your labor. And I know a lot of people, I think I've got this in part two. Yeah, a lot of people, because you believe that millionaires and billionaires are evil, then you don't associate with them. So you miss out on the opportunity to getting there, even if that's what you want. So you need to understand just because they have money doesn't mean they are necessarily all good or better than you or all evil and should be avoided because that's messing up your spiritual flow of money, right? Because whatever deity you worship, when you are praying or meditating or manifesting, whatever you want to call it, I think I've said this in past episodes too. But if you are saying, millionaires are the worst and billionaires are so evil, but then you turn around and you pray, I want to be a millionaire or billionaire, they could give you that millionaire or billionaire status, but you're probably going to end up being a shitty person because the universe or whatever you believe in is going to be like, well, you either got to become evil and understand to get this money. If you believe that to be true, you got to align with that or you're never going to get it because you don't see the connection. Okay, number five, focus on you the person, not the ethics. Quote from Aristotle, virtue makes its subject good and makes the subjects work good. Virtues come from your soul. They come from your soul. It's a deep inherent need to have a good sense of like prudence, justice, fortitude. temperance, developing that patience, developing that control within yourself to not harm other people, ⁓ to not harm yourself, to not make poor decisions. Those are like virtuous things that you can develop and they come from your soul. Businesses don't have souls. huh. Businesses need somebody to ⁓ foster their ethics via that manager's virtues and who they are as a person. So if you are embodying, as an example, virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance, you're being set up spiritually to be a good ⁓ manager of your business, owner of your business. You're aligning everything that you do in your business. It becomes labor and not work. And then you can align. with the energy of the money that is needed to take care of you. Okay, I'm gonna do part two, because this is 21 minutes. Thanks for stopping by. I'm gonna do day 121 is tomorrow. Bye.