EvolutionFM Transcript: Building A 40 Year Spiritual Empire Without Selling Your Soul (Tami Simon, Sounds True)

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Tami Simon founded Sounds True in 1985 with the simple wish to share meditation and inner wisdom. Though she never planned to be an entrepreneur, she discovered that building a sustainable company was itself a spiritual practice. Over time, she shaped her work around three bottom lines. Staying true to her mission of spreading wisdom, nurturing relationships with employees, authors, and customers, and generating the cash flow needed to continue. For her money can rise and fall, but integrity and relationships remain non-negotiable.

She trusts her body as a guide, relying on what she calls her “barf meter” to sense when something is out of alignment. For her, conscious business is not about being nice but about clarity and honesty. In her view, organizational life is a crucible for personal growth, demanding courage, listening, and authenticity. Simon’s message is simple. Business can be both prosperous and soulful when rooted in integrity.

Transcripts may contain a few typos. With many episodes lasting 1+ hour, it can be difficult to catch minor errors. Enjoy!

Scott Britton (00:01.09) 

Hey Tammy, how are you?

Tami (00:02.932)

Wonderful. Thanks for inviting me to be with you, Scott.

Scott Britton (00:05.536)

It's wonderful to be with you and yeah, man, it's just so much of the Sounds True work has had a huge impact on my journey. And today I thought it would be fun to just talk about what it has been like for you being at the forefront of bringing so many of these wonderful teachers into people's lives through books and audio and courses, and maybe to just ground that conversation. Why don't we start off by just hearing you describe what Sounds True is.

for people that might not be familiar.

Tami (00:36.566)

Sure, we've been around for believe it or not, 40 years since 1985. And we're a multimedia publishing media company. So we have books and audios, as you described. Also a podcast series that I host, certification training programs online, including a program called the Inner MBA that trains business professionals on the...

inner skills that are needed to have success with integrity at work. So it's a lot of different programming, learning that's all geared around the flourishing of our souls in the world.

Scott Britton (01:28.14)

And when did you, when for you did this kind of weave of business and spirituality and the soul, when did that interplay really come alive in your life?

Tami (01:41.888)

You know, I didn't set out to be in business. I thought I was gonna do something like some combination of art and social change. I wasn't like, I'm going for business. Nothing like it. And in my early 20s, I gave my life to the notion that artistic means could be used to teach people about meditation and other inner development.

Pathways of access. That's what meant the most to me. That was the way that I found my way into being a human being, really, that I belonged on the earth, that I could find a way to feel at home in myself was through the practice of meditation. And I traveled in India, Sri Lanka, and Nepal when I was just 20 years old. And this was really important to me. And I gave my life.

to sharing these teachings with as many people as possible. So that was really the beginning. What I discovered though, was that in order to do it in a way that it would be growthful and that I could hire other people before you know it, I was in business. But Scott, I'll tell you this little anecdote, because I think it's funny, which is about five years into starting Sounds True and...

making various teachings available on cassette in the late 1980s, the local paper in Boulder, Colorado, the Daily Camera, sought to do a story on me. Young entrepreneur doing this interesting different thing, great. Okay, they interviewed me, I thought exciting. They said it's gonna be on the front page. And I was like, that's so exciting. This is amazing. And so they told me the data was coming out. I went and I bought a newspaper from one of those. I love telling things that.

you know, date the whole situation from one of those, you know, graded outlets where you could put your quarter in, get the paper, it's not on the front page. I'm like, it's probably on the front page of the lively arts section. Wasn't there. Bring the paper upstairs. And I called the reporter and I said, I thought you said that this article was coming out. I'm curious what happened. And she said, have you checked the business section?

Scott Britton (04:01.134)

Wow.

Tami (04:01.46)

Now I'm just sharing this story with you. You might say, wow, Tammy, that is like, that makes you just, you know, either extraordinarily naive or obtuse or stupid. The thing is I just didn't think of it that way. I didn't think of myself as being in business, but over time, of course I did. Of course I did. And I was paying my taxes. had employees and I started learning things about business. And I realized that it was an intensely

creative medium to be an entrepreneur. And that there were ways, and this is how I thought of it, that I could achieve my goals according to three bottom lines. And that's how I framed it. And I framed it as I had a mission, which was to disseminate spiritual wisdom. Very clear to me that that's what I wanted to do. That was the first bottom line, staying true to that mission, which meant publishing things that had depth.

and real value and that would deliver actual transformation for people. The second bottom line was something that we've come to call, sounds true, our relationship bottom line. Sometimes in the past I called it our groovy workplace, but it was the idea of how we treat each other, how much we enjoy our life, how we build relationships with our authors and our customers. And to me, those relationships expand.

They include the earth and the future, people who aren't even born yet, that this relationship bottom line is also something that we perform towards. And both of these bottom lines, are we being true to our mission, true to the integrity of our relationships, are non-negotiable. They never can be trespassed and they don't have to be trespassed to be successful in business. And I, as a person, was unwilling.

to ever make them negotiable. And then the third bottom line is, you guessed it, we have to generate cash. I wasn't even like, know, EBITDA or something. No, I was like, we need cash, cashflow, because if we don't have cashflow, we can't do either one or two. So we better generate cash. And that one, interestingly, had some wiggle room. We could make more or less in any given year if we made more.

Tami (06:22.666)

We had more money to share with everybody who was there and to reinvest and grow our efforts. And if we made less, we would have less and we would figure out why do we have less and we'd go at it again the next year. So that was the very once again kind of beginner's mind. I think that's what I'm trying to share with you, Scott, and sharing these early stories is that I brought a total beginner's mind to the enterprise.

Scott Britton (06:47.67)

I love that. And you know, for a lot of people, it seems like there's a lot of conflicts between these two things like making money, spiritual teachings. Did you have any of that tension early in your journey?

Tami (07:04.256)

You know, I didn't have it early in my journey, but I've had it in the middle and I have it now. And so I understand it. I definitely understand it and appreciate it. And it's an interesting tension with a lot of different dimensions to it. think early on, you you have to imagine I'm 21 years old. I've dropped out of college. What matters to me at that point in my life was just doing something useful with my bad self.

And the fact that I had cash at all was more money that I could make than if I went out to work someplace. And I thought of myself, and this is also shares with you, just you're getting into my heart a little bit. I thought of myself kind of like a monk or a nun, if you will. Like everything that we had belonged to the group. And I didn't want to have a nonprofit with a begging bowl. No, not that. But I saw it as just, was engaged in this deep,

service of what I cared the most about. And I was so happy that there was positive cash that we could reinvest in the company. I never thought about selling the business. never, you know, flipping it or none of that was in my thinking. It was being of service and having the cashflow to do it. So that's how I was early on. What a great mindset that was.

Now what happened more towards the middle, and this is not the end, but bringing me up to speed now from the age of 21 to 63, is I started enjoying fruits of my labor and having a mortgage and not just one home, but two homes and understanding financial pressure and seeing the business grow, grow, grow, and having more money to expand personally.

And then seeing our business post-pandemic have real financial challenges that during the pandemic, there was a huge demand for inner work books and also for online learning. And then after the pandemic, that demand dropped and there was a lot more online competition in our space. And financial concerns have been a real issue for me post-pandemic.

Tami (09:26.868)

And so I understand that. Now, are my first two bottom lines negotiable? No.

How could they be? They're manifestations of my integrity as a person. And I don't think any of us can trade in successfully our integrity for dollars. It's our integrity. And I know it's a heavy word and I'm not trying to sound moralistic. A different word you could use is our sense of wholeness.

our sense of conscience, our sense of purpose, our sense of feeling, goodness as a person. Like I feel my goodness, not mine even, but that sense of benevolence that we each carry inside of us that I want to be the kind of person that I respect, that the people in my community.

respect. I want to be a contributor. I want to be someone every time I interact with somebody on the relationship bottom line. I want to do my darndest that I somehow made the experience a positive thing for them. That when they look back at the day, they go, that was a good moment when I got to have. Now, look, I don't always succeed and I have to go back and apologize to people for being particularly grumpy about X, Y, Z. So it's not like I, you know, always hit the mark.

I don't, but that's my aspiration and I clean it up to the best of my ability when I miss. And so those first two bottom lines are non-negotiable for me. And my intent and focus once again is more money, less money. I can work with that. I can work with that. I can go up and down. can, you know, my lifestyle can go up and down.

Tami (11:30.6)

With the times, of course it can. That's negotiable.

Scott Britton (11:36.536)

How on a practical basis when faced with the decision and maybe, I don't know if there's one, there was a close call for you at some point with deciding to do something or not, do you really kind of tune into whether that's an integrity for you?

Tami (11:51.243)

Yeah, well, I'm not everybody's like this and it has good and bad qualities, but I'm a very body knowing person, a somatic person. So I feel stuff. I feel stuff. So I feel stuff like right now I can feel your presence. I feel a quality around you of a kind of animated here now-ness gravity. So I sense that it's beautiful.

and I can sense your heart. I can also sense if something is put on offer and it doesn't quite feel right. I can feel that first is a little uncomfortable. And if it's really extreme, I can get quite nauseated and think I'm going to barf. And believe me, I've been in plenty of situations where my, some people call it like the bullshit meter or whatever, but I think the barf meter is more accurate.

Scott Britton (12:41.976)

barf meter.

Tami (12:50.434)

And you know, that happens sometimes when we're looking to publish a certain author. And I'm like, my God, it's my barf meter or my bullshit meter. It happens sometimes in deals. And when, when I noticed that I know it's an indicator that this is not mine to do. This is not mine to do. I cannot follow this. It's not. So I believe that we each have the potential to live in a grace field.

field of grace. And that grace field is animated with our, I'm going to use the word again, and when I say integrity, one of the things you can think of is like an upward spine, a sense of really being in a sense, quote unquote, straight. And you could say that's a funny thing for someone as queer as me to be saying.

But what I mean by straight is I'm not manipulating you. I'm not lying to you. I'm not trying to convince you of something. I'm being straight. And when we're straight like that and we do our business dealings in a straight way, straight way means here's my agenda. Here's what I'm looking to achieve. Here's what makes sense to me. Here's what I'm excited about. Here's what I'm not so excited about, what I feel nervous about.

what I don't know if I can deliver on time. Here's the thing we're gonna have to talk about together to sort through. Is this really a fit or not? And I'm gonna need to listen to you. I'm being straight. I'm identifying what's happening. I'm not, you know, being the great schmoozer salesperson to get what I want. When I'm straight, I'm in a grace field. And in that grace field, somehow things unfold in a loving,

and contributory.

Scott Britton (14:50.88)

It's an amazing phenomenon, isn't it? And, you know, what comes up for me as we're talking about this is I think a lot of people think about conscious business or spirituality in business, and it's kind of associated with being nice. And sometimes even people pleasing. And I think what you're describing, which is much more about understanding your own authenticity, what is true for you and being an integrity with that.

That definition and that way of thinking about it to me resonates a lot more. And it also creates room for, I think things that are really important in business, like saying no boundaries, like lots of these things where I see people that kind of try to bring these two things together can get a little bit wobbly on.

Tami (15:40.459)

Yeah, you know, interestingly in our inner MBA program, one of the things we do is that each month I interview a different CEO, at least I have historically over the past several years, and about their experience of being a conscious business leader. And one of the people I was interviewing was a woman named Lorna Davis. And she was the CEO of Denone, which under her leadership was the largest B corporation in the world.

six billion dollar company. And I asked her what she thought the most significant skill was, the most important skill for a conscious business leader. And she said something that surprised me, clarity. Clarity. And you know, I noticed there's a big difference between, you know, people pleasing and clarity. And I loved it when she said that because I thought, you know, when you're in a meeting and somebody brings clarity,

to this situation. What a gift that is. It brings it all forward. Even like these are the two things we disagree about. Let's be clear. That's great. Now we know where we disagree. Awesome. We can either work those out, agree to disagree. You can give in, I can give in, but at least it's clear. Clear about boundaries, as you said. These are my bound. I'm clear about that. That's the opposite of people pleasing.

Scott Britton (17:05.688)

How has this journey that you've been on and you mentioned kind some of the oscillations over the past couple of years, how have you been kind of using that for your own personal evolution?

Tami (17:18.71)

Sure. Well, I think one of the important things is that everything's about our personal evolution. Like the whole idea that something could be about something else. Do you know what I mean? I don't know. That doesn't, mean, like whether it's our relationships or our health or everything is about

Scott Britton (17:36.704)

I do know what you mean.

Tami (17:49.143)

Can we align with what's happening? Can we trust that there is an invisible field of support working with us? If we have to make amends or retread on something, retract so that we can get back into our grace field, can we do that? Do we have the skills and the...

courage and the truth telling skills to do that. So I see everything as fodder for our growth. Another way of saying it is that organizational life, business life is a tremendous crucible for personal growth because all the elements are there. You have to deal with failure. There's

a new challenge in your inbox before you even wake up and check your email. So there's always a challenge there for you. Does that mean that shit's going sideways or does that mean you're an alive person dealing with a living business in a complex world where things are in an accelerated state of change and more and more chaos all the time?

I think of it sometimes as a type of, you're a terrific athlete at the peak of your career, are you gonna see like, we're facing a really tough team. That means I should go back to bed. You know I mean? No, no. That means this is a big opportunity today.

to see what kind of skills I have, to put everything, all the personal growth, all the repetitions, all the training that I've done. Now here's my chance to play on the court.

Scott Britton (20:02.444)

It's a beautiful message and I think one that I'm just excited for more people in Western society to embrace. You know, I think we have this kind of like Sunday spirituality culture or I do my work and then I do my practices or all these different kind of compartmentalizations versus seeing it as the ultimate arena for awareness and growth.

Tami (20:21.93)

Yeah.

Tami (20:26.4)

Well, I think one of the things that happened to me is, you I started, I said, thought of myself more like a monk or a nun. And I thought of the spiritual journey and the spiritual life. And then I met a lot of spiritual teachers. Not only could they not run their organizations well, where everybody was treated with truthfulness and opportunity, but their marriages were a mess. All kinds of things were a mess. And I was like, okay, wait a second.

So what happens on Sunday or what happens when you're doing your spiritual practices? Why is it not translating into behavior and virtue and organizational health? And I noticed that I was extraordinarily repelled by that. And I was like, I will never be that kind of person. That to me doesn't make any sense. We have to be living

embodiments of the values and virtues that matter to us in our deepest moments. And it requires skill development, which is an interesting thing. It's a certain skill to be able to sit on a meditation cushion and quiet your mind and enjoy your breathing. That's a skill.

It's also a skill to learn to have difficult conversations with people. Be quiet and listen and hear what they're really saying and not be reactive. That's a skill. You don't learn it on the cushion, because on the cushion, you're all by yourself. To be honest with you, it's one of the easiest places to be a saint. It's just me. You I got to work it out with myself. That's not simple, but now you got someone coming at you.

and they see the world totally differently. And now you've got not just one person, but a bunch of people who see the world differently. So that's a skill that we get to develop, that we need to develop as human beings. And the presence and the spaciousness, the ability to work with our own reactivity that we develop in spiritual practices, we can then bring that into our interactions.

Scott Britton (22:21.65)

yeah.

Tami (22:50.97)

and we have a winning combination if we're willing to see it as the arena of growth for ourself, not something that we're leaving behind.

Scott Britton (23:02.218)

Absolutely. And I think for a lot of us, we don't really have a choice. You know, I sometimes feel like I was drug across the room to become a consciousness practitioner and spiritual student really. And it just started to become so the inertia and force of not facing things as they came up in my business became so great.

And it just eventually became really clear that it was going to keep happening until I started to use these scenarios. And then eventually that started to make business really fun, you know?

Tami (23:38.23)

Mm-hmm.

Tami (23:42.645)

Right. The other point I want to make is the old way of doing business. And for a long time, unfortunately, I compared myself to what I would say is like conventional business people and their levels of financial success and companies, you know, scape. I mean, and what I saw was that I was comparing myself to something that isn't working for humans.

for loving people at work. It's not even working for those individuals if you really get to know them and hear more about their loneliness and cutoffness. And, you know, was I gonna model myself after the successful business archetype that I walked into and inherited as a young person and die of heart failure in my sixties? No, no, no.

So that model that we, it doesn't work. It doesn't work for the people, it doesn't work for their organizations, and it doesn't ultimately work for all of us, for the collective. And that's what we're seeing right now. We're seeing the unraveling of, I'll call it, an old patriarchal way of pulling ourselves out of the collective and not understanding

all of the inner connections that we're a part of as human beings. And so those of us who are drawn to this conversation, intersecting spiritual development, consciousness and business success, we are the new pioneers. We're the people who are creating the future, the way that people want to operate in business.

with an attitude of sharing the wealth with the people we work with, generating abundance for ourselves, our families, our communities in a healthy way that doesn't trespass what our non-negotiables are, including the ecological health of the planet. We're the ones who are creating, and it's inevitable that we'll get there. It's just early days.

Scott Britton (26:04.298)

It is early days and it can feel really tough for me, at least on the at times, you know, coming from the world of raising venture capital and scaling and growth hacking and all of those things. Right. But yeah, I just see it around so many of my peers where it isn't sustainable living a life like that. And it definitely isn't sustainable the way we've been doing things for our collective mental health, our planet.

And so, yeah, it's really exciting to me for you to be creating things like the Inner MBA and the business I'm creating with Conscious Talent to help people that are on that path to find each other. It does feel like we're on the precipice of a new paradigm. And I think a question I would have for you is for people that are running a business, so we talked about things like the core principles or values of being in integrity, cash, I forget what the third one is.

but what types of practical things have you learned in running an organization for kind of keeping this, this new, this ethos of this new way that you're describing about that might be useful for listeners to hear.

Tami (27:25.62)

Yeah, well, there's so much to talk about, Scott, so I'm scanning to see what is the most significant way I can answer your question. I think the first thing is each one of us has to be really honest and kind of stripped down in how we approach things. So we can get all these ideas about things. And are those ideas really what matter to you most?

What I found in my life is actually what really matters to me most is that same inspiration that I had when I was a young person who first learned to meditate. And I thought to myself, this is the most amazing thing in the world for the first time in my life. I feel at home here in this moment on earth. Never felt this way before. I always felt like I was some alien who, you know, didn't belong here.

was an amazing feeling. And I said, I want to share this with as many people as possible. That notion of sharing with as many people as possible, the glory of our essential nature, true nature, the true nature of life. That's what I wake up and I want to do. So for people who are in a conscious business and you're asking, well, how do you keep this alive, et cetera?

So first of all, are you even at the right altar when you start your work? Are you at the altar you care about the most? Because I believe that when we're at the right altar, that's kind of the alpha and omega of the situation. And there's a lot more than just that, but that's the starting point. So if we're at the right altar, then, and I'll just share, are we saying,

prayers that we really feel. And what I mean by prayers are not like some God's gonna come down and save us. But we're saying, I will put my human alignment behind this because this is what I care the most about. And I know it's gonna be hard. I know it's gonna be hard, because life's hard. It's filled with challenges. It's gonna come at me. I'm expecting it. But I'm here.

Tami (29:52.937)

and I've got this whole invisible support team that's also working with me and we're gonna do this. And then it's not that hard if you're a person like that to magnetize other people because people are so hungry to be in that energy. So are you gonna have a problem finding people who wanna work with you? Heck no, you're gonna be turning them down left, right and center. So pick the best, pick the people who have a character alignment.

with you, where you can sense their virtue and they care about that shared altar as well. That's real for them. And you feel connected with them. Now you have a team and teams are unstoppable. Will you develop the right strategy? Make sure you feel the strategy in your bones, that it's not some conceptual idea based on reaching some

you know, future, who knows what, but you can feel, this is gonna make sense. Because if you think about it, like on a journey, is the next step a good one, the next step a good one, the next step a good one? Okay, great, we have a sense of what phase one will be. What are your non-negotiables, interpersonally? What are they? Can you write them down for yourself? Can your team declare what they are?

Can you find out from other people how they want to build the culture to reflect those non-negotiable values? So many of the best cultural inventions that came at Sounds True came throughout the whole organization. It was never top down. It was people saying, you know what I think we need? I think we need, and people came up with all kinds of ideas. You know, when we move into the new building, can the windows please open? And I was like, what? That's really what you want to talk about? Yeah, that's what I want to talk about.

because the air conditioning is this and that and the old building. And if I had a window that I could open, I would feel like I had freedom in my life. I'm like, that's all it's gonna take is a window and you're gonna feel like you have freedom? I think we can make sure that the window's open. You know, we can do that. You know, a little thing like that, who would have thought? And I'm using it just as an example. mean, other things, this is back when it was a workplace. But other things, can we stop the meetings 10 minutes early?

Scott Britton (32:01.954)

Yeah

Tami (32:16.544)

so that they're not hour long meetings and I'm going hour back to back and eating on the Zoom screen, but could I have 10, could we have our meetings work on a 50 minute hour, not an hour long hour? Little things, people come up with so many ideas, people know what they need. The question is to build a humane culture, a culture that values wellbeing, a culture that values each other. People know, just gotta say, let me hear what you have to say.

Scott Britton (32:43.254)

Yeah, well, what comes up for me is, as you talk about this, is it gets back to that trust, right? Of the people around us and that as a leader, we don't have to have all the answers or be the ones responsible for innovation.

Tami (32:59.104)

For sure, and you can't be. mean, one of the lessons that's been extraordinarily important to me came from an organizational consultant we worked with called Lex Sisney. And he's created something called Organizational Physics, is the name of how he looks at applying the principles from physics to organizational life. But one of the things he talks about is how important it is that everybody's in their genius zone.

in an organization and he starts by working with the CEO or founder and it's like, are you in your genius zone? And what it was very clear in the work he and I did together and the questions that he asked me to reflect on and write on is that I have a pretty narrow zone where I'm effective. It's pretty narrow actually what I'm really good at. There's a few things that I'm a little, and then there's so much that I am actually, do not ask Tammy to help with

any of these things. So of course there are other people and are they in their genius zone. So once you get a couple of these things right, like first of all, do we have an altar at the center? And I'm using the word altar because it's something that you would sacrifice for. It's something that you care so much about that you consider it sacred. If you're running a business and it's like, okay, here's how we're going to do this thing and la la, but you don't have that feeling inside.

you're gonna magnetize other people who are also like that. And now you have something hollow. It's hollow. But if you're clear and other people are sharing that, now you have something that has a real center, a real hearth, a real fire in the middle of it that's powerful. And then you find people who are operating towards that shared altar from their genius zone.

just like you're operating from your genius zone. And now you have a winning team that's ready to handle all of the challenges which will be brought to you. And you're like, that's what we practice for, that's what we're here for, let's use everything we got. And you'll win some, you'll lose some, you'll have the kind of camaraderie that the best teams have, where you love each other forever, because of what you've been through together.

Tami (35:27.524)

and you'll create feats of magic.

Scott Britton (35:31.862)

I love that. And, you know, I think a lot of people have encountered this idea of zone of genius through gain, Katie Hendricks or the conscious leadership group. And it sounds great, right? It's like, yeah, do the things that you're really good at that you love doing that give you endless energy. But, you know, they find themselves like having to like having to manage the practical needs of the business. You know, it's like, Hey, if this, this doesn't get done, like we don't make money or, or, you know,

it won't get done and it's important. And so how have you been able to kind of be intentional?

Tami (36:07.158)

Well, sure. Well, look, in the early days, I wasn't thinking that way. In the early days, I was cleaning the toilet. Really, come on. Not my zone of genius. So I never really related to this idea. I was just like, do it needs to get done, do it needs to get done, do it needs to get done. So as a solopreneur starting out, you know what I mean? That was my attitude. But as the business grew, I realized that was no longer a good attitude.

You know, I'm just used to doing these things by myself. I'm just, that wasn't the right way to think over time. So I think some of it depends on what life cycle your business is in, how much you can apply that idea. I mean, you have to be practical about it. So I just to share that, that, that whole notion at a certain point, I saw that by holding on to so many different things I was doing, I was actually keeping the business.

from growing to the next level. But in the very early phases, I think I was bootstrapping us and that's what it took.

Scott Britton (37:15.126)

I appreciate that distinction and it's proven to definitely be true in my world as well. And I think just switch gears a little bit. One of the things I wanted to ask you is you've had this unique vantage point of kind of being around this wisdom and bringing it to the public since 1985. There's so many people that, you know, on podcasts or we encounter that are like, we're in the midst of a global awakening right now and things are accelerating and

I'm just curious from your advantage point, like, how do you feel like things are evolving right now relative to just that continuum that you've had a chance to witness?

Tami (37:56.791)

Yeah, it's a really hard question to answer. I think that depends how you look at it. There are indicators that more and more people are interested in the depths of spiritual awakening more than at other times. Those indicators are things like the number of podcasts that are exploring these kinds of questions. When I started,

Meditation was something, you know, the Hare Krishnas did. There weren't meditation apps, mindfulness apps, nothing like it. So there's obviously an increase in people who are interested in inner work. If you look at it from a business standpoint and you look at the size of the industry, it's far bigger than it was when I started in 1985, for sure.

At the same time, we're in really, really, really dark times, particularly in America. And there's a sense I feel of, did we do all this work and it didn't turn into justice for people? It didn't turn into opportunities for people? It turned into using the language I would use, an authoritarian state that we're living in? What happened?

And I was talking to some friends of mine who have done a lot of coaching for climate activists. And they were evaluating our shared failure as spiritual practitioners. And I was asking them, how do you look at it? Do you see it as a shared failure of spiritual practitioners? You've been at this for so long and now we've crossed certain...

We can't go back measurements in terms of ecological collapse. And one of these coaches said something I thought was really interesting. He said, you we never can fully understand or know the divine plan. We don't know. We don't know what's happening actually. The unfolding situation is

Tami (40:23.114)

bigger than our small minds can strategize and understand. So I think the pursuit of kind of where are we on the map? What's that? I don't know. I spent a lot of my time thinking about it. And I interviewed Paul Hawken, who is a significant climate activist. And I said, Paul, tell me where are we on the map? And

He used the word, you ready? Apocalypse.

Tami (41:01.28)

So you're asking me a question.

Is the great spiritual awakening that's been promised happening? Is it happening through the kind of disassemblage and destruction and chaos that we're in the midst of and something new will emerge in the decades to come? I believe so. I don't know. I think the question becomes, what are you gonna do today? What am I gonna do today? What are we gonna do today?

Scott Britton (41:28.856)

Hmm.

Tami (41:32.875)

Where are we gonna put our energy? Where are we gonna put our focus? What can we do? Like right here in this conversation, what I wanna share with people is you can be a human with your heart and your instincts and your creativity fully intact and make plenty of money to have a fabulous life on your own terms. You human can do that.

Don't compare yourself to other people. Do it your way, with your talents, your inspirations, the fire that burns in you. Get to the right altar, see what happens. Bring friends with you. You can do it. That's the message I want to give. I think the more of us that can do that, the more we'll see the kinds of results for all of us that we want to see.

Scott Britton (42:31.884)

What's a beautiful message. And I think one that a lot of people need to hear right now. So, you know, I just want to honor the example that you've set by charging this new path that I think more and more of us are hoping to, to bring into our lives. I think the last curiosity for me is, you know, having been at sounds true for so long and there's been so much innovation with technology and media and all the things.

that have become commonplace. What are you most excited about for your business right now? And I guess just the broader ecosystem that you play in.

Tami (43:13.396)

I think what I'm personally excited about is to make some of these connections. I you and I have been making connection between spiritual pursuit, which we might just call inner work, inner work and business fulfillment, career fulfillment and success, important connections. I'd like to help people make connections between the...

spiritual work they do and their psychological and mental health, which I think are wholly integrated. They're not separate at all. So part of what I'm hoping to do is communicate this integrated fabric of, it's not just like, we're working on ourselves like it's some self-obsession. We're fulfilling.

our incarnation as a gift to others. We're doing what we came here to do. We're preparing to die, feeling like we gave everything we could. And that this is what it's about. It's not about some hour on Sunday. It's something different. It's about really leaving it all on the court.

to go back to our sports metaphor in a way that we can feel really good about and true about.

Scott Britton (44:46.006)

Well, I completely agree. And I think we're on the similar, we have a similar altar, which is why I think we're having this conversation. So yeah, I mean, just what a beautiful way I think maybe we can just close the air.

Tami (45:39.082)

Wonderful. Thank you, Scott. Good luck with everything. Thank you. Thanks for your good work. Thank you.

Scott Britton (45:42.456)

Thank you.