Episode 11. Awakening the Soul of Business Through You

The Inner Briefing Podcast

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Marie Groover (00:03.502)

Welcome to the Spiritual 9to5 podcast hosted by myself, Marie Groover, of The Corporate Psychic. This episode is a slight continuation of episode 10, focused this time on awakening the soul of individuals in order to awaken the soul of businesses and corporations.

Marie Groover (00:25.046)

Okay, so last episode, I talked or I started to talk about the phrase business is business and some of the ways that we have normalized unethical practices in business or in corporate through our language and the ways that we communicate. I gave a couple examples at the individual level of how we do this as well, specifically humans who are quote good, great or kind people. But when it comes to work or business, their operating model shifts or transforms into

less than kind or less than what we would traditionally define as good, where in business transactions, the word good moves from meaning ethically sound and virtuous to referring to a job well done. And just the sliding scale of ethical and job well done. What I mean is you might have a really good friend who is a really good person at heart who does a lot of good things for their community and is also really good at their job.

which sometimes requires slightly unethical behavior or normalization of business practices that are not in the most favor of them being themselves or of them being human. But you and all your friends write it off because it's just business. Or worse, you encourage less than ethical or authentic behavior when it comes to business practices to protect yourself or others you know because it's business and business is business after all.

Y'all with me? The reason I'm talking about this on such an individual and personal level is to remind you that humans are behind businesses and that it is actually our responsibility to work ethically and authentically whether we work for someone or whether we own, founded, or run a business at the highest levels. But it's easier said than done. Partially.

because we as a people have normalized business practices to be separate from human practices and partially because we have actually separated human beings from business itself. And I'll be the first to tell you that you are not your business, you are not your job, you are not your job title. And I do agree that there is and needs to be a separation between business and person. However, not

Marie Groover (02:46.424)

to dehumanize businesses and business practices, which is traditionally why we do this, by the way. In fact, there needs to be a separation in business and person in an honoring of each, in an honoring of the business and of the person. Why? Well, I believe that businesses are like babies and that they have souls and that their souls come to us as ideas.

And when we run with them and create businesses that become multimillion dollar corporations, they are at their core, a soul that should be honored, recognized and co-created with and on behalf of. If you don't believe in souls, that's okay. You don't have to. A business before it was a multimillion dollar corporation was at one time an idea. It was a non-real, non-material, non-tangible and existed only in someone's or maybe multiple someone's mind.

just like a house or a building, which at some point was also not material, not tangible, not yet real and existed first in someone's mind or heart. Imagination, we might even say. Just like a baby, which was also at some point non-material, non-tangible, non-existent in reality until it was. And depending on what you believe, even when a baby first comes into existence, conception, it is still not always considered a fully formed being until it is. My point is that

You don't have to believe in souls to see that for something to come into existence, it has to start from seemingly nothing and then be built and brought together by something. A baby has parents, a house has builders and designers, and then one day owners, a business has a founder. Then it has employees, sometimes a board of directors, sometimes an entire hierarchy of humans who work on behalf of a materialized something that at one point was nothing. A business in and of itself is not bad.

It is not a soul sucking monster. It does not eat authenticity in lives and hearts and desires and dreams for breakfast. It just is. And it is mostly formed and shaped and built by the people who mold it. No matter how low you are in the ranks of a business, if you work for one, you are contributing to its life, to the way it is, to the way it grows, and to the way it is perceived. Why is that important? Because

Marie Groover (05:00.876)

If we want to awaken the soul in business, as is the title of this episode, then we must first awaken the soul in the people of the business. So how do we do that? Super simple. We allow people to be, to know, to express and to function as their full, most authentic selves. Like really, it is that simple. But you see, over time,

We have built systematic processes and norms in and around businesses, likely with good intentions and heart at the beginning, that disable individuals from being individuals. And then we normalized it. And then we talk about inclusive culture and authenticity and mindset, but we don't honor it fully by coming out fully as ourselves. We talk about safety to express, but we ourselves don't express, which makes other people not safe to express.

at all levels, by the way, at the leadership level, at the consumer level, at the frontline level, at the mid-management level, at the individual watching and criticizing level, everywhere. It's not just a part of business, but it's deeply rooted in human beings and human desire to belong. Businesses don't do bad things, people do. And then we blame the business or the system or the process, but it starts with us. It all and always starts with us.

You wanna see the change, you have to be the change. Gandhi said that, not exactly like that. But there are some prerequisites to be the change. It takes courage, it takes depth of knowing oneself. It takes trust in self. It takes the desire that is greater than the risk for us to really grow and stretch ourselves and also to fully step into ourselves. And that's also what it takes in business. It takes human beings, you.

stepping into the fullness of who you are, embodying your authentic expression and your values while doing your work or doing your job. And then when a situation arises where you are seemingly being asked to compromise yourself for your values, you choose yourself. And I know that a lot of you are pushing back in your minds right now thinking things like, but if I do that, I'll get fired. Or if you're a leader or an exact thinking something like, not only will I get fired, but what will my people think of me? What will the public think of me?

Marie Groover (07:22.86)

Or if you're a business owner and influencer, you might think I'll lose business. I'll lose followers. I have to do things X, Y, Z way because that's the way it is. We are constantly conforming to the system or the society or the process or the way things are around us. And so the cycle continues, but it doesn't have to. I started TCP in June of 2021.

I literally read cards for my own business to help me decide and dictate how I did things, as in what services I offered, who I partnered with and how, when to hire my first person, when to get help. And while I was reading for my business, I also made decisions for my own authentic being. I didn't first consider myself a business owner acting on behalf of a business. I considered myself Marie and Marie was deepening her...

tarot knowledge, deepening her work in tarot and in readings and in the spiritual space. So of course, I took the deepening that I was doing for myself and put it onto my business because it felt very authentic and it served me, it still serves me. And then I hired my first employee in November. We had already done a find your purpose session or find your purpose work together, which is now a thing that I like to do with everyone that works for me.

So I gifted her with an astrology reading from Earthling Astrology. Meredith is epic, by the way, if you're ever looking for a reading. And I talked to her, Tegan, about TCP's consults with astrology. And I was telling her just how I like to run things and what I like to do and how I like to talk to Meredith or the cards about choices that I'm making. And she said, it's so cool to see that you run your business exactly the way you run your life, that you run your business exactly the way you are perceived.

publicly exactly the way that you would tell other people to. And I was like, of course I do. How else would I do this? But the truth is, we don't. We don't run our businesses or go to our work or our jobs the way that we are, the way that we would do everything. We conform ourselves to the roles we think we're playing in life and in business. I did this when I first started at Microsoft and I wasn't happy.

Marie Groover (09:39.19)

But then I learned who I was on a deep level and I started expressing more and more of that person at work. Not in a let me tell all my coworkers about me or my beliefs kind of way. I highly doubt actually that any of my coworkers know any of my beliefs on a personal level. But more of I'm going to show up fully in myself in every moment that I'm logged in kind of way. And I'm not gonna lie and say I'm sick when I'm actually surfing kind of way.

in a I'm logged in so I'm actually going to do my work kind of way. In a I'm going to live and work within my values kind of way, which meant not lying about missing work to surf. It also meant speaking truth to power sometimes and speaking up when my heart didn't feel right about something, which wasn't every day, by the way, but it felt really big and challenging when it did happen. But you know what happened in my authentic being and expression at work?

My teams came alive. People were more engaged. We had deeper discussions and conversations, not just about work, but also about life. People felt more free and safe to express themselves. And then they did express themselves. And then you know what else happened? We got more done because we could be real with each other. We were safe. If we want to awaken the soul in business,

We need to awaken the soul in ourselves. We have to awaken the souls in others by being ourselves and living our values. Not because anything outside of us is in our control, but because we are the only thing we can control. And in that, we have the power to change everything around us without any control. Ask yourself this, what makes you expand or contract in the presence of others?

For me, I expand when I sense that someone sees and accepts me and loves me exactly the way that I am. I contract when I feel threatened or unheard or misunderstood. This is true at work or at home or at a coffee shop with a stranger. And I want people to expand in my presence at work, at home or at a coffee shop with a stranger. So I do everything that I can that feels in alignment with myself.

Marie Groover (12:03.82)

to allow people to expand. When people expand, so does their work, so does the business they're working for, so does their business, and so does their life. How do we awaken the soul of business and corporation? We allow people to be people. We allow people to know who they are, to express and to function as their fullest, most authentic selves. How are you doing that today?

If you'd like some help in your work or business in inspiring people into authenticity and allowing people to be so that your business can be and thrive and grow and expansion, reach out. This is totally in my job description at TCP and it's a joy to support you in this way.

Marie Groover (12:58.348)

Thank you for listening to the Spiritual 9 to 5 podcast with myself, Marie from The Corporate Psychic. Save and follow for more wisdom, rate the show, and reach out with questions or topic requests. You can find me at hello at thecorppsychic.com. I also invite you to follow me on Instagram at thecorppsychic, and I would love for you to join our community for courses, containers, discounts, and live events. It's called TCP Community and Courses.

and you can find it at community.thecorppsychic.com. And if you want to go big on you, reach out. I would love to work with you. Wherever you are, whatever is on your mind, I hope to meet again, maybe in the next episode right here. I'm honoring you and with gratitude, good day.