How to Pivot with Maggie Battista from We Are Magic Studio
Being in business is being comfortable with pivoting - wether it’s due to our own personal evolutions and changes, or in response to the outer world, economy, and market. We all experienced a lot of pivoting a few years back when the initial outbreak of the COVID-19 virus took our wold by storm.
In today’s episode, Amy invited her friend and community member, Maggie Batista, to come on the show and talk about pivoting in business. Maggie is someone who has been in business (offline and online) for decades and has lots of experience when it comes to following her heart/soul/inner voice to pivot.
She's recently moved through a new pivot in her business - and since Amy’s Patreon community has as well, Amy wanted to have a conversation with her focused on pivoting. (Please note this conversation was initially recorded for the Patreon community’s private audio feed.)
In this conversation we talk about:
How Maggie has permissioned herself to pivot time after time
The astrological and Human Design lenses that have supported her in pivoting
Mindsets and fears that have come up and how she's worked with them to find inner safety
...and so much more!
About Maggie:
Maggie Battista is a writer, storyteller and intuitive. She started We Are Magic Studio to empower others to surface their soul and live intuitively, and recently launched a Storytelling Subscription to inspire others to connect to their own inner voice and made her popular Awaken Your Inner Voice Workshop available for download.
Over the last decade, Maggie’s been finding a way back home to herself. In doing so, she stopped seeking external validation, broke free from anyone's expectations, and now takes inspired action in life and work from a place of peace and inner knowing.
Maggie’s spent thousands of hours studying and practicing human design, astrology, soul center medicine, the Gene Keys, lunar living, anti-racism, decolonization, feminist business, alignment and intuition, breath work, manifestation, meditation, yoga, soul tarot, the Akashic records, dream study, the inner voice, journalism, writing and storytelling. Previously, Maggie launched some of the first internet start-ups; built engaged communities of millions; designed intentional, award-winning brands; and operated hospitality businesses here and in France. She’s written two books and is currently working on a memoir.
Links to things we talk about in this episode:
We Are Magic Studio: https://www.wearemagic.studio/
Awaken Your Inner Voice Workshop: https://www.wearemagic.studio/inner-voice
Storytelling Subscription: https://hdly.me/maggie (all subscribers will get access to the workshop for free!)
Links and resources:
Join the Breathe Into Business Patreon to get access to the community Discord server, live events like group coworking, plus the private podcast feed with interviews, breathwork recordings, and more.
Record a question for us to answer here on the podcast!
Find transcripts to all my episodes here.
To learn more about Amy, head to amykuretsky.com
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Transcript
[0:04] Welcome to Breathe Into Business, a podcast for folks who want to hear what it's really like to run an intuitive-led business. I'm your host, Amy Koretsky, a breathwork facilitator who helps,
service providers, course creators, and artists tap into their own inner knowing so that they can run,
businesses from a place of trust and self-confidence. I created this podcast to.
Help folks like you who are disillusioned with the overculture of online small business building to permission yourself to follow a different path. In these episodes, you'll hear conversations that,
are direct, messy, and even a little bit scary at times. My biggest hope is that each of these,
episodes helps you feel even 10% more confident in leaning into what your intuition is sharing.
With you and doing business your own way. Now, let's take a breath and talk business.
Welcome y'all and here we are. My name is Amy and you are listening to Breathe into Business. Take a deep breath if you haven't already. It's time to breathe and think about our businesses.
[1:16] So I'm really excited to share this interview with you all today. This interview was originally recorded a couple months back with my friend and longtime community member Maggie Battista
from We Are Magic Studio and was originally shared with the Patreon community, which Maggie has been a part of I think since the very beginning. And it was such a good interview and it was such an
amazing conversation and everyone who listened to it got so much out of it that I really wanted to share it with a wider audience, which is you here on this public podcast feed. So I am excited to,
share it with you today. So don't be surprised if in the recording you hear me say something like to the effect of that this is a private interview for our community because at the time it was,
but now you get the benefit of hearing it right here and now. However, I will give a plug for the Patreon community because we've got lots of really awesome private interviews just like this one on.
[2:29] The private podcast feed in Patreon. So if you want to hear interviews with people like Maggie, There was one recently with The Money Witch where we're talking all about money magic. There was
one a while back all about dreaming and that's with Raven Rose from Moon Medicines. We've got an amazing one all about witchcraft in business with Siri Vincent Plouffe from Northern Lights
Witch. We've got one with Lindsay Mac all about tarot and intuition in business. There are a lot of really great interviews that none of you have heard because, or well, that some of you haven't
heard because they're in the Patreon community. And I recently shifted that around a little bit where one of the most beloved and valued benefits that you get from being a member is a monthly,
live breathwork circle with me. We're doing the next one on February 28th. So if you want to join us. I would love to have you there. It's a sliding scale membership fee with the lowest tier starting,
at only $5 a month and the pay it forward tier starting at $33 a month. And you can find more information about that at patreon.com slash amy koretsky.
[3:52] All right, well, let me tell you a little bit about Maggie. Maggie Bautista is a writer, storyteller, and intuitive. She started We Are Magic Studio to empower others to surface their
soul and live intuitively. She recently launched an amazing storytelling subscription that inspires others to connect to their own inner voice. And she also made her popular workshop, Awaken Your inner voice recently available for download. I highly recommend it.
[4:24] Over the last decade, Maggie's been finding a way back home to herself. In doing so, she's stopped seeking external validation, broke free from anyone's expectations, and now takes inspired action
in life and work from a place of peace and inner knowing. Maggie has spent thousands of hours studying and practicing human design, astrology,
soul-centered medicine, the gene keys, lunar living,
anti-racism, decolonization, feminist business,
alignment and intuition, breath work, manifestation, meditation, yoga, soul tarot, the Akashic records,
dream study, the inner voice, journalism, writing and storytelling.
Woo, it's a lot there. Previously, Maggie launched some of the first internet startups, built engaged communities of millions, designed intentional award-winning brands, and operated hospitality businesses,
here and in France.
Maggie has also written two books and is currently working on a memoir.
As you can see, Maggie has pivoted a lot in her businesses over the years, and that is the conversation that we are having today.
I'm so excited to share it with you.
Enjoy.
[5:42] Hi, Maggie. Hi, Amy. Thank you for having me.
Oh, I'm so thrilled that you're here. OK, so this conversation has a general theme of pivoting, because I'm really interested in this idea of pivoting.
And when I thought about who I wanted to talk to about this, you were the first person that came to mind, because I know you've had a really long career in business,
in business, small business, whether it's in online business or in physical space businesses.
And I know there's been a lot of pivoting in your career over the years. And I'm curious and I'm a curious mind and I want to get into it with you.
So I want to hear everything. But why don't you just start by telling us a little bit about yourself and your business and your expertise?
Sure. So I think it's taken me a long time to call myself a storyteller. I've been a storyteller since I was a kid.
But as you said, my work has been varied. I've been out in the working world since I was 18, and I've done a little bit of everything. So I've worked for big companies and small companies,
and generally in startup tech and food and hospitality and publishing and marketing and retail. But I started We Are Magic Studio when I really started coming home to me and really.
Realizing where I wanted to spend some of the rest of my days, you know, and so.
[7:12] My life has been a lot of pivoting and We Are Magic Studio is actually a sacred space for that to honor and offer whatever I want to create. And it may be a satellite project on storytelling.
[7:27] Or it may be something else entirely. And as I began to do that, I started We Are Magic Studio two years ago, I realized that more than anything, I was trying to surface my soul and live as as intuitively as possible. So I said, All right, we're gonna go all in on this.
It sounds so like permission giving to have that really big, broader container that like anything that you're feeling pulled into that you can bring, bring to the table within this container instead of being like, it's only for this, or it's only for this.
You know, at some point in my career, I noticed that, you know, there were some, some jobs where I was at for a long time. And then some jobs where I just kept every two years, I needed something new and different. I wanted to pivot into this or that direction. And,
then I pivoted into small business. And I worked in online business and in retail and hospitality. And I was like, I have to honor the fact that I am a human and I have so many
different interests. And I think it took me the last several years to give myself finally that permission and not let the outside world dictate what I could and couldn't do.
So We Are Magic Studio is for that.
I hope that the main tool I work with is the inner voice and showing people how to use their inner voice, showing me and then showing others how to use their inner voice.
[8:54] I know there's that catchphrase that has been really popular, at least in online business faces for the last handful of years, but what is it like multi-passion or multi something or another? And I see you like making that face also where I'm like, oh, we hear that word everywhere.
But it's almost like what you're saying that brings a little bit of something for me because we are, you know, holographic humans that have like so many different interests out there. And like, it makes sense that we want to be able to create in lots of different venues and areas.
Yes. And also like decades ago, people expected to be in one career for the rest of their lives. And as we have evolved as humans internally, externally, we know that we have limited time here on this planet and there's so many things we want to learn and do. So why can't we just,
honor that and bring the best of us to each of those opportunities? That's That's my mindset around it now.
[9:50] That's a really interesting point. And if I even think about like my parents, and I don't know what your parents said, but like, my mom had one job for her entire life. She was a teacher and she.
Started teaching in public education at like 20 years old or something, you know, and did it until she retired. Whereas my dad actually had two different, very different full length careers.
He was an engineer for many, many years. And then he went to law school and became a lawyer, like in his 40s, which like, that's a huge pivot that I think gave me a lot of permission to
make my own pivots over the years. And I don't think I totally put that together until right now where it's like, Oh, I saw my dad do this big thing. And so it's okay for me. So what was your experience? I had the same experience. So my mother was a caregiver her whole life, for children,
mostly. My father was an accountant for many years. And then he picked up the family and moved to the south to do a startup with a friend of his. And I mean, this was in the,
80s, right? So who was doing this in the 80s? No one was silly enough to do that. But he did it. And it didn't exactly work out. But it was really good to see that.
[11:09] To see that he tried and to see that we didn't, I want to say, I'm really trying to hesitate from using the word failure because I think it's the wrong word. He learned a lot of lessons from it
and I learned a lot of lessons watching it. And he also ran on the side a direct to consumer theological and philosophical bookstore, like on the side as a side hustle, right? So he was a great
example to me of a dude who would do many things to try and pay the bills and also fulfill on his passions. Yeah, just to have that demonstrated for us, I think is so important. So that's cool.
All right, let's circle back to the original conversation. But so, um, how do you think about pivoting? Because I think that there's a lot of different ways that we can come at this conversation.
And I know you have a very kind of specific viewpoint about this. Yeah, I think I've watched myself and others pivot plenty of times now. And so I think of pivoting in two different ways.
And I think that we as humans often combine them and it depends on the phase of life that we're in.
[12:17] But I think there's one style of pivoting, which is towards something outside of us and new. So it could be that we want to expand, we want to learn, we want to grow, we want to take more in.
And an example might mean like, I want to learn about painting, but I also want to learn about plants. And I also want to learn about somatic practices. And maybe they have nothing related.
They're not related at all, but they're expansive nonetheless. And for me, I think that was like the first one phase of my life where I did technology and then I moved into food and hospitality and then publishing and wrote cookbooks and then spirituality.
Right? I wanted to learn a bunch of things.
[12:59] I think the other style of pivoting is towards something inside of us. And that's that distinctly came to me from the inner voice, the inner voice calls it the core of the core of the core, we want
you to get to the core of the core of the core and like do the fuck out of that. That's what it says to me. So that's where we get more granular. And we start learning about let me give you an example,
Maybe we start feeling like we want to be more connected to source or all that is.
[13:29] And so then we go a level deeper and say, okay, I want to connect maybe to the cycles of the moon. And then maybe we drop a level deeper and say, I want to learn about ritual, you know, and I'm in,
the phase of my life where I'm doing more of that, but I am combining the two, I am following the soul and getting to the core of the core of the core. For me, that is storytelling or healing with
story or voice or words. And that may also bring me back up to the surface and outside of me sometimes like maybe I'm going to take another memoir class or maybe I'm going to revisit some
dream study because dreams factor heavily into my intuitive work. But those are the two types that I've noticed across my career. And I think we should have full on permission to do and combine in whichever way, shape or form that feels good to us.
[14:25] I love that concept of like turning into the core.
[14:29] When you were talking about that, the first thing that came to mind for me was actually, because where we are in like the Wheel of the Year, you know, my own, my own ancestry is in Ashkenazi Judaism. And so we just went through the High Holidays.
And there is this core tenant of the High Holidays, which is tshuva, which is to turn or to return. And the idea, like, it can often be thought about as repentance, because we're talking about in the high holidays, like Yom Kippur is like the day of atonement. But usually it's about.
[14:58] You know, returning back to ourselves, returning back to the core of things. And so this idea of, that sort of pivot as well. So that's really cool. I like that idea.
Yeah, the inner voice shows it to me as an image of like a kernel or a seed. You know, you see the full-on rose, but let's take it all the way back down to the seed that grew that rose and explore that a little bit more.
I don't know if that's helpful, but I wanted to mention that. Yeah, there's also something about like, you know, here we are, business owners in.
[15:32] You know, capitalism, trying to live and thrive within a constructor, like a, you know, destructive system or a constraining system in a lot of ways. And I often think about when we're trying to connect to our intuition,
it is about returning.
It's about, you know, oftentimes capitalism is trying to tell us to not trust ourselves and it's about splintering off parts of ourselves. And so what we can best do is to return to ourselves.
[16:06] I love the hands and motions you're making right now. Well, it's funny, you know, when I started writing out how to share my storytelling subscription.
You know, the marketer inside your head wants to use all this language. But the inner voice kept saying, listen, all you have to do is say, you know, you are going to show people how you came back home to yourself.
That's it. How you come back home to yourself every single day and every moment, like you call yourself back in and ignore the external influences of the world.
And so that's why I'm using the like hand motions now because it's a calling home of some kind, you know?
I love that. I'm going off topic just a little bit, but am I correct in the memory that at one point in time, did you say you're an Aquarius? I'm an Aquarius sun.
Yeah, yeah. And so it's interesting to me because a lot of, and we're gonna get into like how you pivoted and where you pivoted from and towards in a more external way soon.
But what one of the main things that you're doing right now is the storytelling subscription that you just mentioned.
And a lot of that is sharing your own experience as a permission giving for others to also make the changes and return to themselves in the way that's right for them.
And it's interesting to me because I...
[17:29] I often as a Leo son myself, so here we are, like, you know, counterpoints to each other on the astrological wheel. I sometimes get a little self-conscious about how much of my story I put
into my own newsletter because that's how I process things and relate and it feels natural to me, but I worry my own insecurities are sometimes like, oh, I'm talking too much about me, but I love that that here you are as an Aquarius,
which is really about the collective in so many ways,
but you are talking about your experience,
as a venue for permission for others.
[18:06] Well, listen, I'm an Aquarius Sun, but I'm a Leo rising. And so at some point in your life, you begin to more fully embody the rising sign, right?
And so I think part of my coming home to myself is balancing those two in a really rich way, where I want to be of service.
We all want to be of service to others, but I had to come to terms with the fact that the best way for me to be of service and the ways that most resonated is when I told my story and parts of my story.
And I needed to give myself permission to let the Leo do what the Leo wanted to do, which was share, revealing personal intimate stories.
You know, now, of course, I gave it a container, you know, this is not a public podcast, this is about private subscription based community. But I am always trying to find the balance between the
Aquarius and the Leo in me at all. I love that. And I agree with that rising sign coming forward,
at later in life. Like for me, I think my first Saturn return around the like 28 29 30 year mark for me is when my Capricorn Rising really reared its head. I mean, it's no surprise to me that.
[19:26] As myself being someone who is historically trained in more healthcare settings, what I'm mostly doing now is working with business owners like Capricorn Rising, here we are. And so.
[19:38] I resonate with that. I love that. I love that. So tell me a little bit more about the pivots that that you made recently and how you've kind of permissioned yourself to pivot both now currently, but also in all these other iterations that you've had.
Well, I'm going to say, first and foremost, that I think for a lot of my life and my work life, I have been very critical of my pivots. I have allowed the voices outside of me to
judge and critique. And I'm done with that. You know, over the last few years, I've been able to work that out of me.
[20:22] I guess I want to say that sort of in terms of permissioning myself to pivot and getting there, getting to that place, first and foremost, I know that I'm an evolving and imperfect human.
With shifting desires from moment to moment. And I don't need to know more than that to know that I'm entitled to pivot at any moment in my life. And the more centered I get in that truth,
the more I can pivot without concern of what others think of me. And I just want.
[20:51] And I want people to know that it doesn't matter where you are in your career, what age you are, what phase of life it is, you are entitled to pivot at any moment and the more centered and quiet you get with that truth, the more you can do it without worry about what others are saying of you. In fact, you can let what others are saying about you, your parents, your friends, your co workers, you can let that wash over you the more you get centered in that truth.
And I, as Maggie the human, I have often followed my bleeding edges and where they want to go.
And often that means innovation. And I think that's also an Aquarius thing. You know, I am always looking for the newest invention.
I built some of the first internet sites that were on the internet, not because I was smart, though I am a smart person like anyone else, but because my soul always called me to possibility and potential. And it still does that today. And instead of seeing that as a flaw in me,
as flakiness, as laziness, like I saw before, I now see that as a gift. It's a gift in me, it's a gift in everyone, and everything from the seed in the field to the human, right? So,
So that's first and second.
[22:16] And then third, I think what sealed it for me, what gave me permission to like enjoy this pivoting parts of Maggie, that was when I started learning about human design like five plus years ago.
I'm a one-three manifesting generator. There are five types in human design.
And I think we've discussed them a little bit in the coworking community, but I'm a manifesting generator and 36, 37% of the world are manifesting generators.
[22:47] We are meant to move fast and bring things to life rather quickly. We may let go of some of the details and try to simplify things.
[22:56] And when I learned that about myself, I actually, my human design guide is fantastic and I spent a lot of time with her solo and she taught me a lot.
When I learned.
[23:06] How I'm a manifesting generator and how I'm designed to work, I began to make meaning around all the pivots in my lifetime.
I saw them less as naivety or flightiness, and I saw my pivots as power. They're my power.
[23:21] They're our power to follow what drives us. My pivots are why I exist and why so many others exists, like to follow our desires and to follow our healing.
And that was the path that helped me interrogate capitalism and the story it tells us about needing to do one thing forever. When I finally learned about human design, I remember someone, when I
learned about it, someone asked me, like, do you now feel like you have permission to do whatever you want? And I was like, well, I've always had that permission. I now believe it. I now believe,
that I have that permission. So that's been like the steps to how I've permission myself to pivot in all the times. But these stories have only really come closer to light in the last five years,
six years, you know, I was deeply critical of pivoting in the past. And I just want to encourage everyone to like, embrace the pivot. One of the things you said that really was like
flashing lights for me because it's exactly the word that my inner critic brings forward or used to bring forward when I was moving through pivots as well was the one of flakiness.
That was a deep wound for me of having these desires and these inner knowings, these strong inner knowings that this is the direction I'm supposed to move.
[24:51] But that inner critic on my shoulder, that little devil on my shoulder was like, people are going to think that you're flaky.
Said one thing and now you're doing something else and like, what are they going to think? And so I bet other people are probably going to resonate with that as well. And no, what were you looking for?
It's for me, it was the flakiness and then piled on top of it was like, leaving jobs that made that brought in very good income. I remember being at a family party and them saying to me, like, you're so flaky, you want to go and do this thing that you're excited about. Why don't you just stay at your job and make a lot of money.
You know, and I'm like, what are we here for? Are we here for that? Am I here for that? like.
[25:30] I'm not following the money anymore. I mean, I have a similar thing, but instead of making a lot of money, which, whatever, it's more about that I spent a lot of money on an education.
I took out six figures in debt in school loans to get a master's degree in Chinese medicine.
And granted, I still am an acupuncturist. I still own a clinic. I'm still using that education even when I'm not actually using needles on people's bodies.
And I still deeply honor that lineage and that tradition and that medicine and everything that that has brought me. But it was not the end goal for me. It was not the final destination.
I don't know if there is a final destination. I'm going to keep turning as the signs keep guiding me along the proverbial path or whatnot. So yeah, I agree. Yeah, I would hope that we would keep
turning for forever forever. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and okay. And so I wonder if you and I are so similar in so many ways, because in the human design, I don't know that you know way more about
human design than I do. But in human design, I do know that I'm, I think I'm also a one three. Is Is that somebody who tends to learn through experimentation?
[26:47] Yeah. So the one is wanting to go very, very, oh, I'm going to forget it, is wanting to go very, very deep into subjects. So you might grab onto Chinese medicine and want to go really,
really, really deep. And the three is you have to try and experiment and do things really well, and do things not so well, or not as well as you'd hope, and learn from those mistakes.
And I think for me, that's why storytelling has been very useful over, especially over my small business career, because I can recount and tell the stories of the things that worked really well,
and the things that didn't work so well, and be very transparent about that. And, you know, people.
[27:36] Like resonate with that in some way. But that's the, that's the one three, I'm the one three, you're the one three, and I'm going to learn by doing. In fact, oftentimes, if I think I want to
bring a program or a project or something to life, I may have to sit down at a computer screen and start writing it to see how it feels and to see if it like feels like it's moving in the right
direction. I may even have to go as far as launch it and give it a couple of weeks and then sit in that energy and be like, Whoa, no, this does not feel good. I don't want to host this. I don't want
to do this. So we have to go through a lot of, we have to go through a little extra stuff to learn and bring our, you know, ventures to life. Well, it's interesting. I feel like a lot of people,
whether it was like listeners to my podcast or clients that I worked with, would sometimes ask me how I have come to find it so easy to...
[28:39] Try something or to be willing to fail. And I do think that I've done some inner work on that,
but I also think that that is maybe one of my innate gifts is like willing to try something and not having as much fear of failure, whether or not we want to use that word in its original sense or not.
But I'm guessing that's part of that human design. But yeah, I think it is a gift.
And I also think it's a practice. It can be developed as a practice, right? You know, I have friends who are not one threes or who don't have the three and they're like me.
We just keep trying. They just keep trying and they learn from the trying and they get less scared of trying.
[29:26] You know, I feel like we have been conditioned by the, you know, society and by capitalism,
to hold back and to not try for fear of that dreaded word failure.
I don't see failure as a bad word, but I...
[29:49] I know inside of me and when I work with people that like, we have to take the baby steps to try whether it's your gift or not. Because that will instill confidence like confidence is a practice.
It is a muscle and you have to grow it over time. And I agree, I don't see failure as a bad word or a bad thing.
I had a huge fucking failure recently and it was the biggest fucking gift ever. And there were so many awesome things that have come from that.
And so like I'm all for failure. What is it? Oh gosh, who was it? There was someone many, many years ago that had the like hundred rejection letters project and I love that sort of thing.
Yeah, I do love that too. I do that. I do love that.
So we've talked about this a little bit, but maybe if you want to just give any specific examples of like any fears that have come up along the way and how you've worked with
them or any mindsets that you really needed to be intentional with holding as you've pivoted over the years? Yeah, I think there's a lot there. You know, when you say mindset, you know, the mind is a word.
[30:59] I think of the mind differently than I think of the actual tool that I use, which is the inner voice to work through pivots. The inner voice is the tool or the entity or the part of me. It's not
the mind that I work with to make things simple, to understand the pain that I'm feeling, to allow my healing and my peace and to choose me always. And so I often talk with the inner voice. The
inner voice has been a process. I'm actually releasing a story today on the inner voice and and a message from the inner voice to my subscription community.
But the inner voice is a...
[31:41] A part of me that I've been working with for many years that guides me through pain, guides me through pivots, guides me through change, guides me through trauma.
[31:52] And guides me through following my desires. So I would say sitting and getting really quiet with myself and letting the calm and all-knowing wisdom from within rise is one of the ways that I have navigated pivots in some way.
Go ahead.
[32:09] But I suppose that there's a mindset that you have to hold there of being like a mindset of like, I'm willing to trust my inner voice or something because our brain really wants to like sometimes reject that.
Yeah, well, I've had to train the mind to understand that it is all of my traumas, and it is trying to keep me safe and control me and limit my fear.
And I've put it in its place next to the soul. I mean, all the parts of me have a seat in the car, right?
But the mind's not upfront anymore. And I have for the last five to six years, the soul has said, okay mind, we hear you, say what you need to say, but then get in the backseat.
I mean, you know that I love that analogy because I use that in breath work all the time where I'm like, okay, we're just gonna let the brain go take a nap in the backseat right now. And like the body and the soul and the heart are gonna drive the car.
That's right. That's right.
But there are some fears that have come up. And I thought I might mention a few of them because they're real fears.
And I've now developed some language to help me navigate them.
So I think the biggest fear when the soul is guiding a pivot in some way, when the soul said, we have to launch this storytelling subscription, I was like, what are you doing?
[33:35] But the inner voice and several, the question I guess is like, that has come up the fear is will I make money and will I be able to pay my bills like that is one of the bigger questions
that comes up in my mind, right? Like, I mean, I think that's the most like universal business owner fear there is. So I think everyone listening is like, I hear you. Right, right. So, so the
inner voice and several mentors has helped me see that making money from my work and being supported in all the ways are like two different things. Sometimes I'm supported by the money I make from
a specific revenue line. Sometimes I'm supported by past work, you know, that I did a year ago or two years ago. Sometimes something comes in out of the blue, like I've been selling all the clothes in my
closet and making thousands of dollars from selling all these clothes in my closet. All of that That supports me in living, breathing, and being able to pay my bills.
I'm supported by the wholeness of me, and I try to not require some specific revenue line to be the only way I support me.
I don't want to attach meaning, too much meaning to that. And that was a key sort of growth period for me to realize that like this specific online offering does not need to support the whole of me.
[35:04] Yeah, I see that as like not holding so tightly to something like there's a real softness and.
[35:16] Not necessarily like looseness, but like allowing this. I don't think that's actually a word, but you know what I'm saying. I love that word, allowing this.
[35:26] Let's do it.
[35:28] New favorite word. It really is a softness to that.
[35:32] And it's, I think for some people, it gets a little spiritual, but let's get a little spiritual.
Let's get a little intuitive when we're thinking about, you know, this, the like being able to support the whole of me through many, many different ways.
Well, what I think it does so well, like having that sort of mindset or working with that is that it allows us to and my thoughts here aren't fully formed. So allow me to get a little.
[36:00] Circular here, but it challenges the idea of like inputs need to equal outputs or like our our work, our efforts need to equal our safety in some way.
[36:16] It challenges this idea of like certain things having to be in exact equal scalable balance.
And it allows, which I think is a challenge then to the idea of capitalism.
I think it's a challenge to the idea of white supremacy. I think it challenges a lot of these like really harmful underlying structures because if you think about business versus something that's more communal,
like mutual aid or something, and mutual aid, what you put out there and how you're supported might be two totally different avenues.
And so what I see you doing with this mindset is really moving away from this more archaic way of one equals one to the more circular, spirallic way of who knows.
Who knows, right? Who knows, things will meet me in unique ways. And so, so I think that was the biggest one that the biggest fear I had to push through. There's another fear because my mind is super powerful, which which is like, am I on the right path for me? Am I doing what's right?
And I know now, and I share this with everyone, If I hear the word right.
[37:31] Then I know it's the mind and I have to allow that to wash over me. If I hear something like, what's the next best path? Then I know it's the inner voice and I move ahead. In fact,
when I was thinking about intentions last year, as I was digging deeper into We Are Magic.
[37:50] There were a lot of projects and ventures that came to me that arrived and I was like, oh, I could do this, I could do this, I could do this. And the main thing that came to me was, Because your intention for the year is to focus on the next best step period.
That's it. That's it. That's all we want you to do. And I offer that I hope I think you vibe with like this word right and wrong and how there is no right and wrong. My inner voice says it all the time.
Totally. And then sometimes I feel like general resistance, like to following my desires or following something that's really interesting to me, which for me, I will be very vulnerable, often comes up as emotions or tears.
Very infrequently it comes up as anger, but it usually is like frustration that leads to emotions or tears.
And when I experienced this resistance, this has been new over the last five or six years, I like step into it, you know, while leaning into my nervous system practices, of course,
like breathwork, but I step into it, and I interrogate it and I ask, why am I crying?
Why am I emotional?
[39:06] Is there some resistance that needs to be released? Why is this trying to show up for me? In fact, I'm going to tell you a very, very quick story. I was recently in Oregon, and it is gloomy and rainy right there now and cold.
And I was alone driving, and I noticed I was feeling low. And I noticed I had sad music playing.
And I was driving through the hills of the Willamette Valley, like going up and down. And I was like, you know what? We got to stop this. We gotta turn off the sad music and put the happy music on. And I heard the inner voice say, why?
Like, why? Why do we have to turn the happy music on? Can we ask why we're sad?
And I was like, I don't wanna ask why we're sad. And I'm on vacation. I don't wanna know why I'm sad.
The inner voice was like, no, we wanna know why you're sad. And so I asked why, okay, why am I sad? And I heard a statement come from the mind. And the moment like the first four words came out, I started crying.
[40:10] And I was like, Oh my gosh, I had no idea that was there. I stepped, but I stepped into it, I heard it, I heard the statement. And then the inner voice was able to soothe and offer some
compassion to it, and offer some really interesting words that I'm going to share soon. But it was like, really, it was a real like moment for me to realize how now my natural reaction is to step
into the resistance rather than step away and lean away and push it down. Like my body cannot take any more of squashing my emotions and my tears and my feelings and my resistance. Like it just.
[40:51] I have no home for it. 100%. I can relate to that so much. I'm guessing that this is, that this not necessarily feels like a new experience for you, but it feels like something where you're like,
okay, this is where I have come after years and years of practice getting to this place.
[41:10] I know for my body, when I resist, spirits like, you wish, and usually like something intense happens that then forces the tears. So whether it's like on multiple, and I mean,
multiple occasions, when I have, you know, resisted feeling the feelings, I have been and thrown down the stairs of my house by spirit.
I've fallen down the stairs of my house multiple times and very much hurt myself and have been in tears. And it's like, oh, I literally had to fall down the stairs to like feel the feelings that are in my body right now.
I have to tell you that it's 2019. I feel this so much like three years ago. It was like three and a half years ago.
I was a week away from signing on a lease to open a grocery store. It was six months before COVID to open a grocery store in downtown Boston.
And things were not working out. Like the city was like, no way Jose spent another $200,000. I was like, from where?
And the lease wasn't turning out the way I wanted it to go. There were so many things that were not working out.
And I just kept saying, not gonna feel it, not gonna feel it.
And then I'm driving.
[42:23] And I'm driving down a road, I have the full on right of way. And I look to my right and there's a gentleman in a car.
And he looks at me, we catch each other's eyes.
And then he proceeds to go through his stop sign and hit me and total my car.
[42:39] Whoa. And I had to pull over and just be like, OK, spirit is like, hi, we have sent you several messages. Your body is telling you this does not feel good.
You keep squashing it.
We're going to stop you. And it stopped me and I didn't sign on the lease and COVID happened and who would want to open a grocery store, a new grocery store in a metropolitan city before COVID.
And I just sort of went into hibernation mode for four months and like picked all these decisions apart and said, gosh, my body has been telling me to not do this for a long time. And why am I not listening, why am I resisting? So yeah, that moment in the car in Oregon was not the first time, but it was definitely a,
witnessing, like I can get more in the awareness space and be like, Whoa, I see what you're doing. No, no, no, we're gonna be sad, we're gonna feel it.
[43:34] I love that. Thank you for sharing that. Okay, so a couple questions that don't necessarily have to do with pivoting, but
that I just really like asking people, especially business owners who I like and admire. And so I'm gonna throw them your way. So what does running like a spirit or an intuitive led business mean to you or an inner voice led business mean to you?
Well, we've talked about some of them, but I'll tell you, I'll summarize them for you. I think.
[44:07] It means following the desires of the body and the soul first. I know that's a lot to hold. But that's what it means for me. It.
[44:19] Means letting the mind, the beautiful brain, all of its strategy, have it say, and use it when it's helpful. Soothing the mind and even allowing the soul to make a deal with the mind to ease or assuage a worry.
For example, I'll say, hey mind, if you can get on board with launching this storytelling subscription and I know it's a low accessible price because that's what the soul is hearing,
We don't want to offer super expensive things. We want to offer accessible things.
[45:00] The soul really wants to offer this service right now. I know it's storytelling, but it also is kind of like a different form of a mentor guide. If you can go with us on this path, then the soul
promises to take some inspired action toward some other venture that may generate more money to ease you to ease you in some way. So I find that I often running in a spirit led business means,
asking the mind and the soul to like make deals with each other. And that feels good to me.
[45:35] At this at this point, maybe at some point, I won't do that. But at this point, it feels good.
[45:43] Running an intuitive led business means choosing me first. first, always, and also soothing myself through that choice. And that means holding the guilt
I might feel from making a choice that honors my body and releasing that guilt. We're doing the work to release that guilt.
[46:06] And then running an intuitive or spirit led business means protecting my energy. And in practical terms, that means being selective about outside influences, what I take in, and also.
Minding my own business. So we all have these inputs coming in toward us, but I only let in and what's invited.
[46:35] And I know that I think your community, there's a lot of healers, right? So we're all healers and I'm a kind of healer whose gift is making meaning.
[46:45] And also I don't talk a lot about this much, but part of my healing is also visioning and hearing possibility and potential for others, right?
I hear it all the time. I hear it in coworking. I hear it when I'm working with a group of people, whatever it is.
Energy production goes both ways. So if I hear and see possibility for others, I will recognize that it's a combo of all my intuitive abilities, but I will mind my own business.
Like I don't offer that. And in the past I may have been like, hey, I have an idea, let's talk about this, right?
So protecting energy in both ways, not letting others get influenced me and not sharing my stuff freely.
[47:34] You know, I mind my own business now and that has been challenging for.
[47:42] People I've worked with and friends in the past. And a lot of people have fallen away from that, but I'm not here to... I'm here to trust me and only me really, more than anything.
And my work will move forward if I mind my own business and don't like, if you ask, like you asked me to do this. I was like, okay, you asked. So let's talk about pivoting. But,
otherwise I'm keeping my lips sealed and doing my work and staying silent and working with my inner voice. Yeah. And well, in one thing I noticed that you didn't say, which I love and appreciate is that it wasn't like running an intuitive business is like following what,
feels good. Because guess what, like sometimes following our intuition doesn't like feel all that great.
[48:40] Oh my gosh, no, it doesn't. I had to do a big thing this summer. My intuition was calling me into like an expansion into a heart opening activity, let's say. And it was painful. It was a week of pain. Every day I was in pain. And some would say,
why are you putting yourself in that pain? I'm like, you know what, there is something on the other end. I don't know what it is. But I meant to go through this. That is not about feeling
good. honoring the body and the soul like the body was physically in pain. But but honoring the body and the soul does not mean it's going to feel good all the time. Yeah. So risk does not feel good all the time. It's okay. That's why we have nervous system practices.
Exactly. So true. And like not that we want to be like, oh, everything is always hard or anything like that. But it's just an acknowledgement that like.
[49:34] Feeling good isn't equivalent to your intuition, like our intuition is kind of like a softer thing that will sometimes bring us to things that feel amazing and wonderful, and sometimes it will bring us to things that are very challenging.
Yeah, I mean, I think intuition is calm and peaceful and all knowing, but that doesn't mean that the.
Guidance it gives you like the path that to that is going to be easy all the time. Sometimes it will and sometimes it won't.
Simple. Yeah.
Agreed. Um, I know that you're a fan of breathwork. I mean, that's how we met basically. But so tell us a little bit. I know,
also you're a fan of human design, as you mentioned, but you also have a whole lot of other tools that you've used to hone your inner voice over the years and just tell us a little bit about how that works for you.
[50:27] So breath work is one of the practices that gets me clear to receive. And I think actually, I've been doing breath work with
you for on and off for maybe a year and a half. I'm not sure when you started the co working community, but I joined right away. So I've been I think I've been part of it for a long time.
[50:52] I had been meditating for a long time before I started breath but found that breath work helped me go deeper into excavating my trauma and more safely kind of allowing my healing.
And it's my healing that led me to feel most ready to step into the wholeness of my soul and what its gifts are, what its magic is.
So it's like creating that container of safety for yourself to then like really for your brain to quiet down so that the voice can turn up a little bit. Correct.
And the voice can feel safe to be present in some way. I don't think I would have been able to launch a storytelling subscription where I'm revealing personal revealing stories without breath work and meditation.
[51:42] Because it gets me to a place where I can get silent enough that I can hear, that I can see, and that I can believe what I hear and what I see and trust it. So those are some things,
but I think in general, gosh, there's more intuitive tools like meditation, breathwork,
therapy. Hello. Yeah, that's a practice. I go every week.
[52:12] Writing, I'm going to also throw in walking and movement into these practices, especially walking in nature for me. You,
know, I was a year ago, just over a year ago, I was called to move out to the sea. I was called to be in the water. I was called to get in the water. I challenged myself to get into to the ocean every day for a month.
So being with nature is a practice and it is an intuitive tool and it helps me listen more clearly.
And listening also is a practice. I'm getting silent and listening to what's being said.
I often find myself working in cafes for many reasons, including like part of my human design says that being in collaborative environments is very good for my process.
But also I can get very quiet and listen and listen to the espresso maker or listen to the people walking in and get better at listening. All of these practices are essential to my life, but also essential to my work.
And they all come first. They all come before my work. And they actually in some ways are my work.
[53:31] Which we may talk about in a minute. But I don't see these practices, these intuitive tools as.
[53:44] Just self-care. Not interested in that. These are my tools for life and my tools for work. And, you know, just like I show up at a computer to work from 10 or work until four, like...
[54:04] Those hours are no longer my work. My work is also like in meditation and in breath work and in walking at the beach every single day or in the forest every single day, whatever it is,
that is my work. Does that make sense? Yeah. Oh yeah. I consider them like non-negotiables.
Like it's not even self care. It's just like non-negotiable. Like if I, and not even from like a fitness or exercise sort of standpoint. But if I don't get around 10,000 steps a day.
[54:34] I don't feel good in my brain. I start to notice, and my therapist notices this, I've noticed this. If in the winter time, when it is colder out and I'm not able to here in Minnesota
be as active as I would like to be, that is when my anxiety ramps up. It's when my depression ramps up. All of those things ramp up and it's like, oh, this is directly related to the number of
steps I get because once I bought myself a treadmill, which was a gift to myself a couple years ago, living in Minnesota being like, it's a middle of winter, I'm just gonna watch some Gilmore girls on the treadmill and walk for an hour. It made a huge difference.
Yeah, same thing for me. I am, you know, I am, I have a lifetime of navigating body and food and and relationship to all those things.
[55:25] But I started walking more vigorously since I moved to the ocean. And I do it to move energy around in the body.
[55:37] And if I don't do it, then the energy stays in the body.
And it makes it so I'm not a clear vehicle, a clear human for receiving whatever I'm going to receive. So I actually, for the first time in like decades, joined a gym, not to.
Ascribe to a specific approach to body shaping or moving, right? But to actually just get on that treadmill and move energy for however long I want to move energy until it feels good.
I have playlists that I put on in my ears. I ignore everyone else and I just do my thing.
[56:16] That's it. I mean, it does. It moves chi. It moves energy from a very basic medical sense. I obviously love acupuncture. I want everyone to be getting acupuncture as often as they can.
And also I understand and am aware of the financial limitations people sometimes have to getting regular acupuncture care.
And certain people have certain, what we call like differential diagnosis, these are like pattern differentiation where they are dominantly chastagnant or like liver chastagnant.
And for those patients, if they can't afford to come in for care regularly, one of the things I often say is like, all right, really focus on getting some movement in your body every single day, because that is the best thing that you can do to move that stagnant she in your body if you're unable to come in for acupuncture and have it moved with needles. So like, it's very true.
Yeah, I love that. I love that. It's true. It feels true to me.
[57:15] Yeah. So final question as we wrap up is I'd love to hear maybe one or two ways that you kind to diverge from what you'd call maybe typical business practices or like how you quote unquote do business differently?
I would say along the line of these practices that the more I leaned into my intuitive tools, the more my...
[57:43] The more naturally my days divided themselves up into three parts. So instead of being at a desk from nine to six or whatever hours I have in the past required of myself and others.
[57:58] I made a big divergence in how I break up my day. There is intuitive time, there's work time, and there's play time with meals in between, and they vary, right? But I work fewer hours.
Hours, physical hours at a desk typing, you know, writing a newsletter, for example, because my work is also in my intuitive time. And so I find like dividing my day up into three
segments has been super helpful to me and very different than what I've done in the past. That's one. I think, I think that also just to interject, like, I think that goes
back into this idea that like, our quote unquote work can't be so narrowly defined in so many ways.
[58:46] That's right. That's right. It. It's funny. I think I was talking to my hairstylist who is deeply intuitive. She said something like, when you're out walking, you are working.
I said, I know, I am working.
Fuck yes, me too.
[59:07] Not only am I perhaps thinking about a project or getting clearer on a project, but like just to move that energy around, will give me new ideas, will get me clearer so when I sit down, I make the most of my hours that I am at my desk.
And I kind of specifically didn't set up a desk in my new place because I don't really want to be at a desk all the time.
I'd rather be out in the world and then come down to my desk for two or three hours and do what I have to do.
[59:38] So that's one thing. And I think the other thing I...
[59:44] I think you maybe hear it a lot, but I say no when I would have said yes in the past and I don't follow the money anymore. I had an important potential client come to me.
Earlier this year wanting to give me uber sums of money to mentor them.
[1:00:06] In the past, I would have told them my rates and I would have brought them on board and made that money. But now, my work has shifted so much that I interview my clients as they interview me,
you know, and I hear or see what my intuition is saying they may be seeking for real and decide if I'm a fit for that. And, you know, I turned away that very, very well funded person because
I felt that they needed a therapist. And they weren't resourced for the type of more esoteric,
work that I may do. So I couldn't take them on. And it's,
less and less painful to walk away from the money these days because I know that in those choices, getting back to the original message from the inner voice, I'm getting to the core of the core of the core of me, and doing the fuck out of it.
And it will only make it better for everyone who interacts with my work, or here's my stories. So I think we talk about saying
no and not following the money. But that's a real that was a real sort of I got into the awareness seat, the witness seat of that process for myself. And I was like, Whoa, you have.
[1:01:23] Things have changed for you. This is this is different. I mean, this person was, you know, semi famous, none of that did anything for me. I just sat there and said, Okay, this isn't a good. This isn't a good fit. You know, and here's where I recommend you may try next, you know.
And my guess would be that like, just like, hmm.
[1:01:50] You can't jump from always following the money to where you are now. It is a baby step process where you said no to probably something a little bit smaller at one point and then something a
little bigger at one point and something even bigger and that it has been a month's or even years long process for you to get to where you are now. Yeah, it is a multi-year process, I think.
Sometimes I think about like, I was in tech for a long time in startup tech, and I see those tech people with their millions, and then suddenly they're doing something very different where they're not following the money. And that was not the process for me.
I've been, I didn't make that money. And I've also been like gradually trying to make,
these choices that feel good to me in tiny ways and then in bigger ways and then in bigger ways.
[1:02:53] It's a process and it's also like a testing out of my nervous system and what it can handle and what it can't handle.
To be honest with myself. You know, if it's going to drive me nuts, then maybe I got to take that client because I'm worried about X, Y, and Z. And I don't want to focus on worrying about those things.
But when your brain has to be shown, like, proof that you'll be okay, that you'll be safe, it's like, you know, I'm making an assumption here, but like, here you are in this like beautiful home,
and you're like not, you're not like on housed by any means, like you're able to have the need your needs met. Well, that's the question the inner voice says, Can you eat? Can you pay your rent?
Do you have clothes on your body? Okay, then are we desperate for this, for this potential client or this money or this brand? No, we're not. You still have food in your fridge, right? So So let's take it down, let's relax, let's calm our nervous system.
We can make this choice. We can launch this storytelling subscription. And I remember the developers were like, you should be charging like, I don't know, like 60, 70, 80.
Some people are charging a lot of money per month for this type of stuff. And I was like, what are you talking about?
[1:04:13] I'm not here to help people who can afford $100 a month. I'm here to work with other people like me who want another,
little bit of mentorship and guidance and example of what it's like to lead an intuitive life. Simple. So we're not going to charge crazy amounts of money. And mind you're going to have to get on board with it.
You know, like an overall theme of what I feel a lot of your.
[1:04:43] A lot of what you've shared has kind of come back to is really creating that sense and that container of safety for your brain so that that inner voice can really shine. Like the pivoting
has come from allowing that to happen. The saying no has come from allowing that to happen. Like it seems like a lot of it comes from the many, many, many years of work that you've been doing to find a sense of inner safety and a sense of inner knowing.
Yeah, I don't think it was a coincidence that the inner voice showed up five or six years ago when I was out in the woods, maybe seven years ago, walking and was literally like, hi, hello, can you hear me?
I am here. Don't worry about anything.
[1:05:30] Anything you need to navigate, I will navigate it with you. Right? I don't think any of that was a coincidence. I don't think I'm wild or wacky or weird because I heard the inner voice.
That is the device, the voice of the soul that has helped me create the safety for myself to do business differently using your words. right? So, and, you know, it works, it works for a segment of us who really want to trust
our inner wisdom and know that the answers are not outside of us, that we are magic as we are because all the answers are inside of us.
[1:06:14] Way to plug your brand there. I love it. That's a lot. That's a lot. But yes, yeah, that's it.
That's it. Well, in that vein, can you tell folks where they can find you, how they can work with you, how you can support them, all of those things?
Sure. So my website is called We Are Magic Studio. It's wearmagic.studio.
And on the homepage is all the details on my storytelling subscription, which is a monthly subscription where I share several audio stories or lessons or messages from the inner voice,
to support living and working intuitively.
And lots of other things which you'll see on that page. And I work with other people one on one who want to sort of create a three month or six
month container to, you know, reflect on what they're hearing and, and receive replies from my inner voice on what they're hearing and sort of like maneuver through interesting,
joyful, challenging moments.
[1:07:29] And the new thing is that I am going to host a workshop on December 3 called Awaken Your Inner Voice.
And it's a two-hour workshop because everyone asks me about the inner voice and it's so funny that I've never had an event totally dedicated to it like I do other events.
And so I'm going to have a workshop to help others awaken their inner voice on December 3.
Details will be, you'll have the details there. But, but as a just as a little special note, if you join the storytelling subscription, you get free access to the workshop. So it's it's it's free for for subscribers.
[1:08:11] Amazing. Thank you so much. Oh, Maggie, been such a pleasure to have you here.
Very fun. Thank you, Amy. I love you very much. Love you too.
Thanks so much for listening today. If you liked this episode, or even if it just got you to think about your business a little bit differently, I'd love for you to subscribe,
to the show and share it with a business bestie or a few of them. And if you're interested in breathing more into your own business, I made something just for you. It's a five-day.
Breathwork challenge for business owners. Over five days, you'll learn how to use.
Your breath to find deeper clarity and trust in yourself and in your business.
You can find it at amykaretsky.com slash breathe.
[1:08:58] Breathe Into Business is recorded on the ancestral lands of the Dakota and Anishinaabe peoples. It is created by me, Amy Koretsky, with the production help from Softer Sounds Studios.
Thanks again for listening and breathing into your business with me today.
[1:09:12] Music.
