Conscious Business Lessons From the Top Spiritual Teachers In the Industry w/ Matthew Jankauskas
Matthew Jankauskas has worked with well-known spiritual leaders like Sharon Salzberg, Wim Hof, Sounds True, Robert Wright, Steven Kotler, Mirabai Starr, and many others helping them launch programs and scale their trainings and teachings. In this episode, Matt shares the lessons he's learned working with over 400 healers on building a sustainable business.You'll learn:
Behind the scenes of the top teachers in the industry
Developing cyclical business models
Understanding the value of one's services
The confidence to share your work with integrity
Leaning on community and partnerships
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Music Credit: Nova by River Roots - https://www.youtube.com/riverroots
Podcast Transcript
Lou: Hello, friends. Welcome to another interview episode of the art and business, art and business, art and business of Meditation podcast. I'm your host, Lou Redmond. And I'll start by saying, matt, we didn't talk about this before we started, but as I make a mistake here, know that I am learning so much about business every day, and I literally just learned something before we got on this call, is that I have this microphone that if you're watching on video, you can see me. I've had this microphone for four years with the same stand. And literally ten minutes ago, I learned that the stand faces the opposite direction. So sometimes it would fall over, and I'd be like, oh, this stand sucks. And it's. And I'm blown away. It was like a revelation of, like, oh, my gosh, I've been doing it the wrong way for four years. So I say that because it literally just happened. And I'm learning new things every day. So enough about me. We have on our podcast today Matthew Jankausis. He is an energy healer, intuitive reader. He has a consulting agency called Elevated Living who, and he helps spiritual teachers grow and scale their trainings. He's worked for some incredible people, names that you had heard of, names that I loved, and have explored their trainings and teachings. People like Wim Hof Heart Math Institute. Sounds true. Sharon Salzberg, David Gandelman, Robert Wright, Stephen Kotler, and Mirabai star. Love Mirabai star so much. And Russ Hudson and the Enneagram Institute, huge Enneagram fan. So I'm excited to chat with Matt and bring his wisdom to you on this podcast. Matt, welcome to the show.
Matthew: Thank you. Thank you. I'm excited as well. And just. Just real quick, elevate living courses is the name of the consultant company and training agency.
Lou: Yeah, not past tense. My bad.
Matthew: Okay.
Lou: So, Matt, what? You've been on this journey for a little while. You've been studying, it seems like, for maybe 15 years, different sort of modalities. And I'm just curious, as someone who's had a lot of experience, both in the healing arts, I would say, as a, I'm sure, experiencer and a practitioner, what is the modality that was the most revelatory or healing for you in your path?
Matthew: That's. That's a tough question. When my. I mean, my journey started in 2008, so there. There's been, you know, 40, 50 modalities, and in that time, there's been a few I really, like, have trained a lot in the shamanic and kind of clairvoyant arts and had gotten into that. My first yoga teacher had been teaching full time and then living in India half time for like 30 years, and she was mostly blind. And so all of the work we did was energetic and it was opening me to these other realms and big experiences. With yoga, you kind of aim for samadhi and unit of consciousness. And I was finding myself in these spaces, but there was little to no education about how to navigate the spaces between here and there, which is where I was mostly stuck and stuck in my own trauma. And so that really. Yeah, the shamanic arts and clairvoyant training really kept me grounded and helped me heal and navigate a lot. I needed it. Yeah. As well as I will say, internal family systems has been a big one for me.
Lou: When did you know that you wanted to be a practitioner of kind of the healing that you were going through?
Matthew: It's been a little bit of a roundabout journey, I think I've been a practitioner for. For three and a half years. I was teaching full time back like 20 to 25, and I was embodying a lot of expanded states, but not in a grounded way. And I was having health issues flare up and lots of things. I felt like the more I was going into no self states and expanded states, the more health issues flared up. And I just felt like I shouldn't be teaching other people how to get into these spaces if I cannot ground it and sustain it in a healthy way myself. So I stopped teaching for about like seven or eight years. And then it just my different teachers started telling me to teach at the same time, and I was feeling it in my body. And so I kind of just started up again. Like, I knew it was time. I think I knew it was time for a good year before I actually started again.
Lou: That's fascinating. So, like, what did you do to ground you back into what the work, I guess, was leading you to do at that time?
Matthew: Yeah. God, how do I even. I mean, because it happened over years. I was really knocked out of my body when I was like 20, 21, 22, like very, very big, expansive states and a lot of shedding parts of myself and reconnecting to, like, what actually is self. You know, you're like, leaving the structures of the culture when you step into those states. And a lot of self identity is made up of the structures of the culture. And there wasn't really a lot to catch me. There wasn't systems and people around me who were really going through the same sort of journey. I would say, like, the level I was experiencing at. And so I felt very alone. And I was going to a lot of yoga, meditation communities. I just wasn't finding it. But learning energetic tools. It was the kind of thing where my aura would feel 50ft wide and I'd like bump into everyone I was passing, I'd feel their emotions, I'd know their thoughts, and I didn't actually want that experience to be happening. And it was just overwhelming over years and I had no one teaching me how to navigate that. And so it was really the tools that allowed me to have control over that bring my aura back in, to send someone energies, someone's energy back, how to recognize if someone else's energies in my body, how to navigate those more expansive and no self states in a healthy way, which a lot of which I think is just comes with like human maturation and yeah, individuation as well. But it was a journey. It took a lot.
Lou: Is that when you started then moving into like business support during the interim time of not doing the healing practitioner work?
Matthew: Yeah, it was academia first. I was thinking I would get a PhD and really just studies and mysticism. And I worked on a project. We interviewed like 70 meditation teachers, a lot of whom are very, very, very famous known teachers, but they become a number about the different spiritual states of consciousness people were experiencing. And then we were taking it out of the context of tradition. So we interviewed 60 buddhist practitioners, 15 christian mystics, 15 jewish contemplatives. I'm getting a little off track here. But anyway, so I did that, and then being in academia, we were doing this really beautiful work that was being written up for other academics. And that was when I was like, oh, I really like want to be bringing this information to lay people to like my family and my friends. And that landed me in media and business in the spiritual space. It sounds true. And yes, that was when I was kind of was doing this work hours a day and studying with teachers, but I wasn't. I had been pausing teaching at that time.
Lou: What a cool gift to get that opportunity to be in a space like a. Sounds true. Did you always have a passion for helping healers on the business end or did that grow as you matured in your own journey?
Matthew: I think the initial passion was content development. And so helping people flesh out the outlines for their courses, kind of getting behind the camera, helping them develop what they were teaching, kind of coaching and doing a lot of space, holding my role there was very forward facing. So I was talking to teachers every day on Zoom, working out content, the business end was in some ways like the gift of that job, because I didn't really understand at that time where I was coming from that I could teach yoga or meditation or be a healer and have a business like that around myself. And the more time I spent talking to teachers and healers there, the less I, the more I realized it wasn't like luck, it wasn't fated. It was, these people were doing very intentional decision making in building their business at each step and stage. And there's so, like, sounds true. It has over 130 employees. It's like a corporation in a way. And so they can only really, in terms of like, business relationships, work with certain levels of teachers because that's a lot of salaries to pay. You're in capitalism, you're in corporate America in a way. And just getting to talk to all these people and see how they think about every little decision, it was just really opening my mind and then seeing how a lot of the best manuscripts and outlines and content that came my way, I had to turn down because these people didn't have businesses. They're beautiful healers. They've been doing this for 30 years. Really profound. But it, we couldn't work with them. And that really hit me over and over again. And I started to just notice the differences between how, like, those people think and how people who are in a different position think. And it wasn't really accidental. And just being in that world for, I guess, three and a half, four years, day in, day out, and being really passionate about it. Yeah, it's just soaking up a lot of the business stuff along the way.
Lou: So cool. So people that are connected, they're doing incredible work, but they're not as business savvy or maybe don't even think they need to focus much or that the universe will just provide and things will grow as they keep going along. And sometimes maybe there's some truth in some of that. Maybe, maybe. I don't know. But for the people that are, I guess the question is, like, what are those differences that you see of, like, and spending so much time around people that have really more enterprising businesses versus the people. That sounds true. Won't take because of there's not a big structure built around them. Like, what are those differences?
Matthew: Yeah, and I will say it sounds true. Does do passion projects and, but, but
Matthew: there are a lot. And I mean, you, it's, it's weird. I just, something I had noticed was, you see, like every level of practitioner at every level of success, it's the wild west in that way. So, like, you'll see beginners, like, beginner coaches who, with thriving businesses and then, like, really advanced coaches who are, like, struggling. And there's not always a correlation there between the success of someone's business and their ability and their depth and their embodiment and their craft. Totally. So differences. Yeah. Like, different personalities create businesses in different ways. I mean, there are like, the people like Eckhart Tolle and Adi Ashanti and who are really embodying these deep, profound states. And even Wim Hof, meeting him, like, his energy, like, it was like being around a tornado. You can feel it from 100ft away. It's like, um, some of these people have teams around them managing their lives and, and, but everyone's path is different. And some of the. Can you ask that question again? I'm like, I'm losing my.
Lou: Yeah. The differences between the people and, and I'll just riff, I'll just riff a little bit, too, on what comes up for me. It's. And it's something that we need to be careful of when we are choosing mentors or coaches or healers to work with, to really just remember that because someone's a really good marketer might not mean they're a really good practitioner. So people can have the most beautiful pages, and we want to have beautiful pages, don't get me wrong, but it's important to really tune in and check in with yourself on understanding that to be a good marketer and to be a good coach, they're different skill sets. And so I think that's, it kind of speaks to, I think, what you're saying of, yeah, there could be a practitioner that's super, super successful, but then I speak, you know, I've had people on the podcast where they don't have a huge business, but I could just feel from this person of like, wow, this, this is, she's the real deal. And, and it's things like that that I get excited, too. I think, like you, it's like, I want to help. I get so excited about this stuff where I just want to help that person grow because more people need to feel what I'm feeling on this conversation. Um, and so the question was, what are you noticing in the people that maybe are like that, that have, that they're really connected but they don't have the business side versus when, like, this. You mentioned it being methodical in a way, but also unique. So it's a mix. Like, there's some things that people are, that common people are doing that are successful versus the ones that don't end up reaching that. That pinnacle, or however you might call.
Matthew: It, even just like, reaching a sustainable business that, like, totally your neighborhood dentist might have.
Lou: Yeah, forget about Eckhart Tolle. Like, let's just. And that's the attention with this podcast. Like, I want help helping people make a meaningful income. Right? We don't. You don't have to be the Eckhart tolle. We want to just be able to do the work that we love. We want to do the work that's calling in our hearts and that, what is that for us? And that was always my goal. I always said on this podcast before, is, like, I made it. When I made $39,000 a year, I made it like, that was it. That's what I was working for for years. I hit it. And what's the reward for making it as we get to keep doing this work? And that's really, um, a part of the message that I'm trying to share on here is to not. It's not the, you know, seven steps to, uh, abundance, which people can get into this work because of the freedom, but it's like, you got to understand your intentions. Anyway. I can go on a rant about this, but, um. Yeah, any. Does that. Is there anything coming up around differences?
Matthew: Something else for me, but I'll bookmark it. Um, I, you know, it's tricky, I will say, because I've worked with, like, 400 healers, and it's so different. Each person's business is as unique as their fingerprint. It's their own essence and energy coming out through them. Everyone's path to where they are is completely unique and different. You could take ten people making $100,000, $300,000, and their businesses are all going to look different on the inside. Their path is all going to look different. So it's unique. Something I have noticed and have been reflecting on is certain people are more built for entrepreneurship. Certain people feel confident expressing themselves at each stage of their own journey. I think with all of these professions, one of, like, the main things is we're stepping out of a system. We were raised to have a system supporting us, and now you're tasked with creating that for yourself. It becomes you and God, you and self. Like, for example, if I become a doctor, there are endless systems I can step into. If I become even a therapist, there are issues there with the exchange for the amazing work they're doing, but there are systems I can step into. I can go work at a hospital. I can go work in a practice for two years, build up clients, and then step into a private practice. Through these predictable paths, I can lean on to support me. And in our field, we are creating those systems now for this generation and the generations to come. And I think that's where I start to get lit up. Uh, that's, that's kind of a role in a way. And a lot of people are not built to navigate that in between. Like, I know I wasn't raised to. And it took me, even when I sat down and started an agency, I was. I mean, I was, it took me six months to start making money, but not at a good exchange. And then a year and a half, I think I was going to throw in the towel for the third time. And a mentor fell into my life. And like, in three days, I tripled my income because he gave me the permission to do it. Actually, this is like a very, very, very high level marketing consultant. Like, consults with Eckhart's team and sounds true and different people. And I'd actually set up a call for him and our mutual friend David Gendelman as a favorite. And David didn't show up to the call. I work with David.
Lou: I'll take that call. I'll take David's call.
Matthew: I worked with David for like two years at that point. He had never missed a meeting. And that's the first one he misses.
Lou: Oh, my gosh, that's such a bummer.
Matthew: And so this guy ends up like, he sees me having a similar business to him and he's like, oh, you must be struggling in all these ways. I was struggling in all those ways. And he's like, this is how I would structure your offers. This is how I would structure contracts. Do it like this. Don't do this. And like three days later, I had two people come in and within a week, I had two contracts signed and I had a full time income from that one call, as I was about to throw in the towel for the third time because it was wearing on me.
Lou: Robert. Well, two things with that. Anything that you could share, what advice he gave you and, or I've been calling in a business coach for the second half of the year and I'd love to know who it is. Maybe I'll book a book something or hire him, because I'd love to. I'm sure he's probably pretty high level from what you're sharing.
Matthew: His. His name is Richard Talvinger. If you look up conscious marketer. I don't. They do one on one consulting anymore. But I, yeah, check him out and yeah, he's, he's good. Um, honestly, it was a permission thing. Like, I had been doing this work full time for four years. I'd worked with so many famous big time healers. I had, you know, helped create over like 25 courses, ten online summits. I've been creative producing soundstrews, podcast, so many projects. I had at least like seven solo clients under my belt. But it was in a way where I was like working so hard and so much hours, so many hours in time for all the, for what was coming back and was doing so much training myself to figure out how to do it. And it was really a permission thing and guidance. Like, I didn't, to feel comfortable like saying, this is the price, this is how much money these services cost where I'm like, it's not for a company, it's just me and that thing. He gave me permission. That was what it was. I already had the skills, he had just given me permission and the knowledge to understand how to structure it because I'm very big on integrity. And so it's like how do I help my client earn what they need to earn? Well, I earn what I need to earn and all the students are getting a beautiful exchange and experience. Like where, where is integrity? So he helped me figure that out.
Lou: Yeah, that's a, that's an important one to step out of the systems that we have been in around what it's so easy to just use like an hourly rate sort of exchange in that way of like what is this, what is my time worth here? And to feel like we need to creep our way up from, you know, forty dollars to fifty dollars to sixty dollars and we're just going to be on a long road if we, if we're going, if we're going that way, if we want it to actually sustain us and the work that we're doing. And I see that, I see that a lot with newer people stepping out and feeling their own self worth to charge. You're not even like a ton of money just to charge, you know, solidly. That's going to actually allow them to have this exchange. So it's, yeah, really, really common.
Matthew: Yeah, this was stepping out of hourly and into forms of business partnership. So like taking on earning a percentage of revenue that we would create with a retainer, but doing it in a way. So we both have me and the client. So if I was partnering with you, we both have the right amount of skin in the game kind of thing because you're you know, you're bringing money for ads. It's your business. It's everything. So what is the, yeah. Finding the right balance, but it created yeah way that beautiful partnership. But with that, I need to be very picky and choosy about who I take projects with and work with.
Lou: So that's, I love that. That's makes sense when there are like, the metrics of value are tangible money. Okay, well, all right, im going to charge this much if you make this, I have this percentage. Theres a way to dial that in. And what would you say to someone who is, lets say theyre an energy healer and theyre charging right now, lets say dollar 60 a session and maybe if you buy four sessions, its $200 for four sessions or something like that. Would you say to someone, they can't really say, well, you know, I'll heal your x, Y and Z and you give me X, Y and Z. Like how do you help people that are not in a financial metric with what they're helping people with? Like how do you help them step into the value of what they're charging or their services?
Matthew: Yeah, I think the way I tend to work with that type of person as a bit different, it's more crafting their ecosystem and getting into a lot of concepts like cyclical earning and figuring out a really sustainable vision for the next year, but then backtracking six months, four months, three months this month, and what does that look like and what is their energy ready to expand into? What role are they realistically ready for? For like I'm sure you run retreats, maybe you teach some small groups and you know what you're going to do in Q three and Q four, Q two might look different and so really like mapping out a sustainable model and seeing what's flowing for people. Because some people work better teaching groups, some people work better one on one. If it's, I mean if someone's charging 30 or $40 an hour, I would tell them to stop. I would tell them to start doing some free sessions with ten or 15 people to get their confidence up and to know, like if, I mean, I personally charge 175 for 75 minutes for energy healings right now. I've had people pay me double after sessions I've had. And I mean, there's a lot to it. It's knowing who you can serve and how because some of those sessions are immediately life changing for people. I've had a lot of people reconnect with estranged family members. People's money issues go away and then other people I'm not a match for. And the session was probably worth $40. And so it's my role to recognize that upfront, to learn how to do that, but to really have the confidence to know what value I can bring into a session and who that value is for. And so that is on the healer to learn those things. But, yeah, I would say, like, there's some confidence building. Maybe getting into a training space where you're exchanging healings for free with other healers you're receiving, too, and then getting your confidence up. And a lot of that, too, is community and who's around you. A lot of people struggle with confidence solely because their communities don't reflect validation back to them. And they're maybe living in a place where people don't understand and value what they do, but they can look into your body and see where your trauma is stored, which is extremely valuable. I've had clients who have had drastic shifts with me, but still go to therapy every week. And they've told me they're not getting much out of therapy, but they're getting a lot out of me. But their insurance pays for therapy, so they still do that. And I don't know, there's, like, a lot, and I think, right, yeah, it's different for different people, but self worth and confidence, I think, really reflects money. And I know for me, traveling, I had some of that because I'm from a family and community system that doesn't understand what I do. I've had to create that. And so traveling, like, very quickly instilled a lot of confidence back into me. It's hard as a healer to be in these altered states of consciousness when other people around you don't experience them. You have to really develop a sense of okayness and self assuredness with that. At least for me, that was a part of my journey. I was really affected by that when I was younger. It made me lonely, I think.
Lou: What are. When you think of the energetics of business, like, how do you approach thinking about that or teaching about that or how maybe, how might someone think about their energetics of their own business? Obviously, it's going to be unique to them.
Matthew: Yeah, that's a big umbrella because it could be a year.
Lou: Take it where you want.
Matthew: Okay. Well, I can say my agency is niched into, like, coaching, consulting, and then training design, and training launches. And I will usually read if the training someone is wanting to do is, excuse me, energetically aligned with what's actually wanting to come through them into the world and it's usually if someone has a sustainable business and they're far along, like they've figured out how to do that on their own. And so it's about like removing, but everyone's always in a growth period. So helping, like reading energy to see what those blocks are for this person's next step, this next evolution. Reading, if they're ready to actually embody what they're wanting to create, is a big one. Being a part of an entrepreneur is having visions and dreaming. And I think especially in the early years, there's a big mismatch that people go through with not understanding what visions they can embody now versus like, what visions are for the future. Just really exciting. But people who, as an agency, I work with people who are pretty far along. And so I'll just read that this is what's actually wanting to come through. This is in alignment with their audience and what their audience wants. They have the business models in place to hold and sustain. What's coming through is a big one. I've pretty, the last three or four launches I've done, I've read the energy of the training. It's like birthing a song. It's like a songwriter catches a song out of the air. That's what our offers are like. And I've read the exact number of students who came in. It was the last three trainings I did. And that will change depending on the model of training someone wants to do. It will change if they bring in more employees. A lot of factors shift what's coming through and how to hold it and shape it. But that's a big one because I've had people, I had one launch fail, actually, and the person had a big platform and I had just done way more revenue with someone with one 10th of the platform at a cheaper price rate. And so I was a little bit confused. And when I stopped and read their energy, they were kind of entering like a little life crisis and they had been wanting to let go of the business we were launching and they didn't tell me and I didn't want to read their energy because at the time, I was, kept the healing work and the agency work separate, so it didn't feel appropriate and it just didn't work. And so I had to like, read it and go into why. And, yeah, just they weren't aligned with what we were creating, but they were telling me they were, they were very outwardly passionate about it.
Lou: And I know this might sound like a simple, overly simple question, but I don't think it's something that's been discussed, and I think it's helpful for people in the audience to understand it. And if I'm being honest, to also for me to, like, know that I understand when you talk about different business models, and a business model is pretty much the way that you make money.
Matthew: Right.
Lou: So you might have different ways that money is flowing in. And when you mentioned that having business models that can support the amount coming in, can you just speak more? Maybe an example of what that could look like, whether it was for a client or just a made up example.
Matthew: Yeah. So was specifically referring to support the amount of students coming in to the training. So business model could look like, say, you certify people to teach breath work. You could do that in a ten day in person training. It could be a three month online training with a live weekend. It could be five two day in person events over some months. It could be online weekends with one live event at the end. And I think a lot goes in. I mean, it's a mix of, like, logic and data, as well as the energetics. Right. In the breath work space, the trainings that other people are going to see when they're looking to get certified look different than in the yoga space or the meditation space. The yoga space might be longer. A lot of breath work companies will certify people, I would say, like, hyper quickly in, like seven days. And you're a new professional kind of thing. And so that that'll affect you if you want to do a longer, more in depth training. And so it's like getting the, you know, what's coming through you, what meets the audience, what meets the economy. But that, but that's what I. Yeah.
Lou: And does that go into, like, the circular or sicula? Am I saying that right? Cyclical, yes, like, model of knowing when money's coming in at different stages or what you're launching. And so would you help someone actually be like, okay, my goal is to make $300,000 this year and then show where that's going to come from on a month to month basis.
Matthew: Yeah, I guess it's a little different. I look at it, like, seasonally or quarterly. So when, I mean cyclical earning, it's getting out of monthly income. Maybe you have a monthly basis. It depends on how your income is coming in. If it's through one on one clients or one on one client packages, you might have some, like, a reliable base. But, you know, you're going to do this group program in March and this other one in October. And there's a retreat in August. And so your income is going to be different at these different points of the year. And so it's really, it's cyclical, maybe, you know, lead an excursion to Peru in November, whatever it is. And however your business looks, it's much more cyclical in nature and it's much more healthy, to be honest, since I have my own business, at least it's been four years this June. I mean, when I'm running launches, it's like go time. And then after them, I like it's rest time. It's replenishing, it's bringing in the creative ideas, doing interviews. But for in the last month of a launch, it's go time. Because it's not even just, I realize I'm getting off track here, but it's not just a to do list. But if I'm doing a launch, I am holding the energy of that launch, I am holding together that container, and if I step out of it with my attention and focus, people stop coming and it stops and it starts to fall apart a bit. It's like, you know, if you have a child, you don't just, they're out of mind for five days, and then it's like, oh, yeah, I have a child again. Like you're, I don't know, you're bringing this into the world. I guess midwifeing, it's maybe a strong word, but we were holding the container for these things. But cyclical earning, I guess it's more of like a holistic view of your whole business that allows for more peace and more freedom and more knowledge because it's much closer to nature. It's much closer to what it is. I'm sure your business probably looks different season to season based on what you're creating and bringing into the world at different times of year.
Lou: I love that. We actually had Sam Garcia. She wrote a book called Regenerative Business, and she does a lot of work around, like, aligning nature and business. She's been on this podcast and it's super fascinating to really think of our business like this. Living like it is an expression of nature that we're holding, that we're birthing, that we're nurturing, and that we're growing and it needs our attention. And that might look different depending. You mentioned seeing business and it's unique to your energy type. Are you saying that in a energy healing framework, a human design framework, when you think of unique for your energy type, how do you think about that?
Matthew: No, I'm actually not talking about typing. I guess I see energy. It's just been a part of my reality since I was about 20. I can't not see it. And so it's. It's an expression of you. It's an expression of your essence. I would say the same way, like, if you were a songwriter or a painter or writer, like, what you're creating is a direct extension of your essence or your connection with something larger. And your business is anything we create, it's the same thing. And so it's going to look unique to you. And I think it becomes really relevant because we're in this phase is humans in this space where a lot of people are trying to figure out how the fuck to do this, and it's hard. And we turn to podcasts, we turn to methods, we turn to coaches. And I see a lot of people trying a lot of different methods that aren't a fit for them, that are partially a fit for them. And eventually they have to figure out, like, what is their own natural flow outside of those methods, or how do those methods serve their energy and their flow?
Lou: What do people need to unlearn or relearn when it comes to having a spiritual, focused business?
Matthew: Self trust. I would say self trust and self worth and self confidence guide a lot. They allow us to be in connection with our center and our heart as we are creating. And I say that specifically because
Matthew: we're learning to make decisions differently. A lot of it feels risky. We're learning to trust in ourselves and life differently. It's not like you sign a contract for a job and you're taken care of if you show up. It's a different relationship to life and reality that is self sustaining and learning how to do that. We need to learn how to nourish relationships with people and what kinds of people we want to nourish relationships with. I think I shared. My business has mostly been like these partnerships, and so they're very close partnerships where we're co creating projects together, or I'm coaching and consulting and holding and playing a certain role, getting really clear and confident in our craft and owning that. I think that's early on where a lot of people get stuck, like you were sharing with charging rates, but it affects the rates we charge, but also the decisions we make. Some people, it keeps us from putting things out there that want to come through us, that can really serve and help, or we put things out differently than they want to come out. So, yeah, really cultivating. I would say self trust and self confidence is a big one.
Lou: Over the last four years, you've been in business, but it sounds like you've been in the industry, obviously for longer. What worked in 2015 that maybe not is working as much now, or what new things are working now. Do you notice any trends as far as example, like launches or online courses or in person events? Are you noticing things that this used to work really well, it's not working as much anymore. This new thing is working really well. Just be curious to hear your thoughts on that.
Matthew: Yeah. So I was in academia in 2015 still. I entered the business side of things in 2017. And so at that time, I was still soaking a lot in. I would say the pandemic shifted things, so. And before that, a lot of these simple techniques and strategies worked easier because less people were doing them. And Facebook and Apple had their thing where now ads are not as cheap as they once were. So in the past, I could be like, hey, Lou, let's run a free webinar, run a bunch of ads to it, and guide people into a training. And reliably, we could know that that would work, but now there's so many people doing that things are more expensive, and so it's becoming more of an art where your energy I'm seeing matters more and what you're embodying matters more than just trying on different methods. So it's, yeah, we need to be more artful now.
Lou: So focusing, continuing to focus on our own self work as we do. And you mentioned how business can be a vehicle for. I don't know if you use these exact words, but I'll just speak for what I think that building a business can be a vehicle for spiritual growth. And I'd be curious, like, how you might think of that. Or I guess if I were to speak more to it, maybe the failures or the issues that we come across, if we can maybe see them as turning towards ourselves and asking ourselves, what do I need to learn here? What's the. What still needs to be transformed or healed, or however you look at it, and trusting that this is guiding us to. To a deeper unfolding of our essence, to a deeper unfolding of what wants to come through, using the vehicles and the means that are at hand. And if you've started a business, that's a beautiful vehicle at hand for. For you to continue to grow, that's at least how I think of it. And continuing to. That's the importance of having coaches or mentors or still being. Doing these different sorts of modalities yourself. To be a more clear channel for that to come through because it can get real quick. I've talked about this on this podcast many times how, you know, our shadows will come up and they can sometimes get in the way and they can sometimes start leading, and that's not. We often will won't know that's happening because there are shadows. And, you know, we might have some humbling moments. I know I have, when we realize, oh, crap, I've been not in integrity here, and now I need to realign myself. And what a beautiful opportunity to do that sometimes can be really hard.
Matthew: Yeah, I want to speak to that. I also want to. I'll circle back after because I had some more practical thoughts come up around your last question. But, yeah, entrepreneurship in itself is deep spiritual shadow work. It's growth, and it requires growth. And I find for myself included, the closer we are to that, like, core essence and core core birthing, the more core, the shadow that can come out as well. And so it can be harder, which is where mentors are invaluable, especially. I mean, I think talking to people, people get mentors in whatever industry they're in, whether it's entrepreneurship or, like, geology or whatever it is. But in this field, where we're having to unlearn so much of, like, maybe what we learned in school and the culture we grew up in just to be an entrepreneur, I think mentors are even more valuable because we're. A lot of times we're borrowing their ways of making decisions, their states of being that they hold themselves in as they're navigating different things, and we need those examples. Otherwise, if you didn't have those examples, it's really hard to just shift without direction.
Lou: Totally. This is just coming up as we're talking about it. I'm curious, your thoughts. Do you feel just as if you were to learn, and it comes with the concept of transmission, which I think most people on the podcast would understand and feel into. Like, if you go to sit with a high spiritual teacher, right, to feel like you're in the energy of the transmission of the teacher, it's often some of the teaching that is the teaching. If you think of some of these Ram Das, Nareem, Krali Baba, just the transmission is happening on a purely nonverbal level. Do you feel, like, with business to the people that
Lou: there's a transmission of that in the same way that there's a transmission, spiritually blurring lines with words here. But just curious if how that rings for you of, like, if there's actually a transmission of the people, because I know there's certain people in business that I've learned from where I feel like. Like there's this energy that I take from them that I've almost, like, embedded a lot of that into my own work on a very deep level. And I'm so grateful for them, just as I would be grateful for the spiritual teachers that I've learned from. Yeah, I'd be curious your thoughts on that.
Matthew: Yeah, I mean, 100% with everyone I've worked with. And part of why, too, is, like, my business model outside of coaching and consulting. And the agency has been partnering with people. And when you partner with someone, there's a lot of exchange that can happen both ways. And it's been a gift to work with some of the people I work with and seeing how they navigate where, like, say, someone spends 20 grand on ads and they're not working, and then the entrepreneur is just, like, laughing, like, oh, it's fine. Like, they can just, like, they're not affected by that, even though it's a big deal, they're able to, like, transmute that energy and shift into the next step, and it's like, oh, wow, okay. Yeah, it's okay. Like, I don't need to go into panic, and then we, like, and then something does inevitably work down the line. But it's, it's not always, you know, the first thing. And, and when you're doing that with a company, you're not playing with your own resources. You're playing with a company's resources. And I've had jobs where people take it so seriously and freak out and don't hold themselves well. And then I've had clients who. I don't know, who are just really impressive humans, and you see the decisions they're able to make that I wouldn't have otherwise been able to make or even been considered, been able to consider, because it's. Entrepreneurship is carving new paths. And so watching people who have created beautiful businesses, they tend to carve paths that most people like. They're thinking and feeling and holding themselves in different ways than maybe more, the larger mass. And so it's really beautiful to get to witness that and be a part of that. It's inspiring. It will also, I'll find it's empowering. It makes things feel more possible for myself that wouldn't have otherwise felt possible, that, like, next step feels, like, within reach kind of thing. I think I used. It is an embodiment thing, like you were saying, like, you feel like that energy seeps into you. I feel that as well. It's an embodiment thing where, say, like, mentally, it's like, oh, I can go do that. I can go create this program. But if I'm working with someone who's actively creating and holding these containers, then my, in my body, it's like, oh, no, I'm going to go create this. And then I can actually step into something where before it would stay more in the mental space, but my body wouldn't get online.
Lou: What would we be surprised to know about some of the leading teachers or people that you've worked with on a broad, broad scale, obviously not needing to name the individual?
Matthew: Um hmm. All right, I will. I'm just. I'm remembering your question I partially answered before because I felt like it was an important response. Um, I mean, they're humans, too. And, like, my role is working with people at whatever their growth edge is. And so if you're meeting a growth edge, you're generally feeling some fear, anxiety, and you're going through a process, because it's a personal up level, whatever that looks like for you. A growth edge is a growth edge, and my role is helping people move through them. So they are humans, too. Some of them have been the kindest, sweetest, most inspiring people. Some. Some people get stressed and frustrated, and it can be messy. It's. It's like they're humans, too. And there is. There's a difference between a forward facing teacher Persona and the human inside, I would say. And for some people, that difference can be larger. And for some people, they're very, like, transparent and grounded and centered and, like, what you're seeing is actually what you're getting. But they're humans. And so everything across the board.
Lou: Yeah.
Matthew: If. I don't know if that was too big, but that's perfect.
Lou: Perfect. Did you, did you have anything else from the question before that you mentioned?
Matthew: Yeah. You were asking me, like, what's working? And
Matthew: I get it's like a multi tiered kind of answer. It's not always the clearest answer. It kind of starts with, like, what's working for you right now, like, what is kind of unfolding and what's flowing with ease in your life or within your business is usually a good indicator of, like, where to start. But especially as someone who's, like, been active in the online spaces and done a lot of traveling, I would say as, like, a healer, a teacher. And I use the word consultant more than coach. But my role changes from community to community. In San Marcos, it's different than in the community. In Philadelphia versus, like, Mizunta and Oaxaca versus Mexico City. It kind of like shifts based on who's around me, which comes back to. I mean, there is. It's less about building a following and more about building community. And, like, how can you serve the people around you? I will say, like, those offerings of what I would offer in San Marcos versus Philadelphia are drastically different. And what wants to come through me is different in each place. And I resonate more in certain places than others. But there are a lot of people who succeed with prerecorded content. For me, even as an agency, it's been live content. I think I just have more passion and connection to it. But I do think people want to connect with a teacher live. You know, I've seen the data of with courses where, you know, 100,000 people are taking a course, and the amount of people that finish and the amount of time people spend on these, even after they drop a bunch of money, if it's not live, it's very low. And people, you know, they want to show up and experience, Lou, they want to be around you. They want to feel your presence live. They want to be a part of a conversation, a part of a meditation. And so live content, whether that's classes or trainings or retreats, and seeing what flows for you. And then also just understanding, like, your role in whatever communities you're in. And then finding communities that can actually resonate with your essence is a big one, because there are places where my essence won't really be met, and then I can go to another place and boom, everyone's just kind of resonant with me. And my teaching comes through a lot more beautifully and is a lot more valued and needed. So live. Live content. But community building, I think it's really important.
Lou: I think I heard, I was listening because I'm actually having Bindi in as a guest teacher in my mastermind tomorrow. Obviously, Bindi and David's training, but I think him and David, her and David did a teaching or a mindful business, I think pretty recently, where they did a webinar or whatnot. And Bindi was saying the same exact thing that, like, the community is, I think, especially with AI driving everything to uncommon, the content end where it's all going to, I don't know. And this is happening in the meditation space, too, definitely. I have my own thoughts about it, which is a separate conversation. But that aspect of the community, I think, is going to be the thing that is going to be the most hardest to replicate on a scale level because your energy, everyone's energy is so different and you're going to bring together a group of people that's so unique that there's going to be something there that it's going to be different than another community. So having that in person thing and for some people who don't want to spend time in that way, there's definitely other ways to deal, to navigate it. I think with the online courses, I think some kind of hybrid model I feel works pretty well of having some live content versus, or pre recorded content versus. Now we're going on, you know, we know we're going to meet so there's some accountability. But yeah, I think that's, that's, that's an important, important thing for sure.
Matthew: Yeah. And knowing too, like what your community, like what kind of value they're receiving from you, what experiences they desire with you, meeting what you're desiring to give. I mean that, that can shift from community to community. But I mean, some like, it's a really common sense thing to say, but a lot of people I've just been noticing in my own coaching work, consulting work, a lot of people get disconnected from these core things when they're trying to hold all these different roles of their marketing, sending out emails, growing a list, keeping up with social, it's like the essence of their business. That center of gravity can get lost and, but that's really, you know, I think that was coming up for me because community to community, I'm part of different. When I say communities, it's more like places and the communities that live there versus my online community. And for me it's been more about my network of teachers and healers I work with. But different communities resonate with me as a teacher in different ways and desire different things from me. So understanding what you're bringing and to these different communities as a member or leader in them, not just a group of people who you're trying to sell to, it's, you're building relationship.
Lou: Matt, is there anything we haven't talked about that you maybe were excited or maybe something you're excited about or something that feel you want to share will be helpful to up and coming meditation teacher, healer coach that might be listening to this?
Matthew: Hmm.
Matthew: I mean, I'll be honest, I kind of have some curiosity around your passion for the business side of this. I know like what drives it for me. But yeah, I'm curious what drives it for you? Because not, it's not every teacher that gets really excited about this stuff also.
Lou: Totally. So my spiritual journey started in a mastermind group. After having hitting a low point with alcohol and drug use and finding randomly this group, it was an entrepreneurial group, and I had no business being in this group. It was in San Diego. And that group opened my mind to another way to live life. And I started reading books and started getting down this path of self development. Meditation was a path that. Meditation was a habit of successful people. And it was through meditation. Without looking for it, without planning for it, I had a big spiritual awakening. And so I was not a spirit. I didn't consider myself spiritual, but I just kind of found really suddenly. And that led me to quitting my job pretty dramatically and finding and, like, knowing that I had something more to give. And so I feel like I was bred in this group of these entrepreneurial minded people, and I was. I'm so excited. It gets me so excited. I just, my personality type fits the, I'm really okay with the unknown. I like not having it be strict and solid each month. Like, I get. I'm really, I'm really excited at the potential and the possibilities that aligned. And so when I quit my job, I wasn't very, I had both two things. I had, I had this big awakening that I wanted to figure out how to bring into the world, and then that can sound a little egoic, but I wanted to figure out where I was going to meant to serve, and I had to support myself financially. I was 25 years old. I just quit drinking. I just did all these things. And so the figuring out piece of how to do that and do the business side and the spiritual side and make it work, it was really, it was difficult. It took a long time. When I mentioned I had, it took me four or five years to make $39,000. So it didn't happen very quickly. And it was that struggle and that figuring out is why I'm just, I've always just loved this intersection of the entrepreneurial and the business. And that's kind of why I always appreciated David, because David had that, too, and he kind of fit that mold. I didn't see a lot of it out there, and I hadn't really realized how much I love it until David's training and going into these group mentorship groups and supporting these people and being like, I can do this forever. This is so much fun for me. Where I was in last May, actually, I had a podcast last May. I was, I was doing a deeper meditation month that month, and I just had this. I can just see, I'm like, oh, this podcast is not this. It's actually this. And that was one of David's training, this podcast rebranding last May to the art and business meditation. I could see who I'm talking to. Like, I know exactly who I'm speaking to. And it just gave me all of this energy when that led into, I mentioned the mastermind group being my intro into self development. And so to start my own mastermind in that spirit in October became, has been like the most fulfilling thing that I've done. So it's, this is definitely a newer unfolding for me, and I'm still unsure around. I have multiple things, like, do I fully step into this role, but do I have to let go of these other things that I was doing? So I'm at this real. I'm having a lot of fun with it, so I know that's a good sign. I'm getting reflection from people coming on the podcast that this is not a podcast that's out there necessarily. This is the podcast I wish I had when I was, like, trying to figure this out. And so, yeah, I'm at this period. That's a little background of why this excites me so much. And I can just talk about these ideas for, I can see possibilities for people, and it's just fun for me to be like, hey, go down this route. You don't mind this path. And I'm definitely not the most acumen on business, I'll admit that. It's not like I'm going to say, okay, here's the spreadsheets, and here's this aspect. I'm offering something that's not as tangible business wise, but I'm having fun with it. And I, again, I don't, I'm, I'm in this new. Something's growing, something's maybe dying. I don't know. But, uh, I'm, I'm here for the ride, so if you have any, maybe we need to, uh, we need to hire you first for some sessions to work, to work through this more. Matt, that might, that might have to happen.
Matthew: I would love to. If you feel resonance there, I'd love that. And, yeah, I feel that I'm like, a little bit in the opposite space where I've been heavy on the business side, and I'm like, as I'm coming, I've been doing the healing work for two and a half years, but I haven't really stepped out and grown my own brands yet. And to be honest, I have fear there because I have clients who perceive me as like a leading business coach and consultant. And so to step in as a. I honestly, I'm pretty far along. Like, I've been training for 15 years as a healer, so I feel very grounded in my work. But my brand as I step out is very baby. And so to do that in front of my clients who perceive me in this other way is like, I'm going to lose clients. I can feel that it's. So that's where my rub is. Like, how do I do both things? Because I don't want to stop doing this, but I also want to do this, and that requires me building a brand. And so it's.
Lou: That's so fascinating.
Matthew: But, yeah, we're in. We're in. We're crisscrossing right now.
Lou: Crisscross. The passing of a time to people.
Matthew: I think I love masterminds. I might start one around August or September. I'm figuring out the timing. Yeah. I also had so much fun teaching in that training, too. It was so beautiful to see people grow. But if someone's starting out, I mean, you know, the obvious, like, keep teaching, get out there and do it in ways that are building your confidence and self worth around your gifts. Exchange with people, teach classes. I know a lot of people get stuck there. I think it's invaluable to get business coaching support from someone who has created what you want to create, or someone like me, who has helped hundreds of people create things. It's one or the other, because you can spend, like, if I didn't run into Richard Tavenger, that did. David Camelman did not come to the point. I might have thrown in the towel, I might have given it another year and not made the steps I needed to make because I needed someone to be like, these are the steps you need to make. And my role as a coach is. It sounds like what you're saying, because I do a lot of the strategy work, but my role has tended to be giving people permission to make the moves that they could not get their subconscious to agree to. It's like that simple. It's giving people permission to have this thing that some part of them is like, you can't have that. You can't do that. But it takes years off of people's journeys, and it's so hard to kind of be in that egg and to not be able to move forward. So I would say get support, whether from a coach or. Honestly, I really love the group environments, like what you're hosting, what, what I'm about to create. What I've been a part of, what we both hosted in David's community is because you're, you're just around six, seven, eight other. I like small ones, other people who are on everyone's in slightly different places on their journey, but it creates these waves and portals of momentum and inspiration where things become possible and you can direct your energy down paths and get support to walk down them. People aren't going to take those steps without these containers, depending where they're at. Lou: Totally. Yeah. The true mastermind, I think, is like Max. I'm holding it as Max 15 right now. I have eleven. But in a real mastermind, it's like four to six, right, where each person's getting that intimate support from each other. It's not just me. Um, you might run it a little different, but I think that's such a power of being around. There's that Jim Rohn famous quote, like, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. And people can argue that for some reasons, but I've always actually taken the, the essence of the truth of that, that we are getting impacted by our environment and in this world where we're doing solo work, to be around other people that are doing it and to like, have people to share things that only they can understand when we fail or things don't go right, it's in. So invaluable. So go check out what Matt's up to. Uh, and yeah. Anywhere else you want to send people to, like website and Instagram.
Matthew: Uh, elevatelivingcourses.com. i'm moving that over to. Yeah, I need, I need to switch URL's. But right now, if you search Matt Beck, b e c k, matbeck healing backslash, elevate livingcourses, you will find my consulting and agency work or just matbach healing.com. and then, yeah, elevate living courses. Is the website. Old website I'm moving over to. So any of those locations you can find me.
Lou: Awesome. Well, Matt, thanks for taking the time. This was really fun.
Matthew: Yeah, likewise. Thank you. This is beautiful.
Lou: All right, friends, we'll see you later. Take care.