91. Spiritual Connection in Entrepreneurship: Advice from Gail Nott

Cinthia Varkevisser: Hi, we're Cinthia Varkevisser and Michelle Walters, co-hosts of Mind Power Meets Mystic. Our weekly show is here to expand your mind to what's possible, uplift your spirits to move forward with confidence and joy, and to create a space for your collaboration with the invisible. Welcome to Mind Power Meets Mystic.

Michelle Walters: Welcome, everyone, to this week's episode of Mind Power Meets Mystic. I am Michelle Walters, the mind power hypnosis part of the equation, and I am joined today by my co-host, Cinthia Varkevisser, who is our show resident mystic. And, Cinthia, would you please read the bio of our special guest today?

Cinthia Varkevisser: Yes, today I'm extremely excited to welcome Gail Nott. She is a certified professional diversity coach for solopreneurs—soul-opreneurs. She coaches purpose-driven business owners to grow their business in a way that saves them time, shares their message, and allows them to create their legacy without sacrificing their personal life. She is an expert at building a business around your life instead of the other way around. With over 20 years of experience in marketing, sales, and personal development, and previously in our previous profession, she quickly filled her massage practice and grew a holistic wellness center to over 40 practitioners. Today, Gail's clients build lifestyle businesses based on their values, gifts, and passions. Now we have a great story because Gail and I met each other almost 20 years ago. Welcome, Gail Nott.

Gail Nott: Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here.

Cinthia Varkevisser: You know, I have to say it was really fun to tell Michelle that I had met you so long ago in a quasi-BNI setting with friends of mine. And, I know this is already off topic, but because we're all business people in a soul-aligned profession—all three of us—let's really quickly talk about how that didn't work as beautiful as it was and how many amazing people that we met.

Gail Nott: Yeah, I love the people in the group. The funny thing is, it was, like you mentioned before we were speaking earlier about it, an alternative to a structured program like BNI. And BNI does have its faults. One of its strengths is that structure. They have a built-in system where there are continual volunteers. And there's also someone who owns it as a business. So even if all the volunteers fell off, that person is still committed to keeping it going; they will find the next round of volunteers. And even now, as it's growing worldwide, I've heard that there are fewer entrepreneurial owners, and now the corporate headquarters is starting to run them. So I think there are pros and cons to that because then you don't necessarily have an entrepreneurial-minded person running an organization that's supposed to be for business owners. But if they find the right person, maybe it works. But yes, the friends of mine networking group was a lovely group of people—definitely purpose-driven, soul-driven—but not necessarily driven to keep a networking group going, which is fine.

Cinthia Varkevisser: Right. Also, funny thing that when—first of all, Michelle, I'm gonna throw you in here—for the people who don't know what BNI is, could you explain what BNI stands for and what that's about?

Michelle Walters: Yeah, so I joined BNI maybe a year and a half ago or so. It's been a really helpful leg of me getting to meet a lot of people and getting to sort of increase my visibility and credibility with other professional people in my area and in my network. It's been a really helpful component for things. It is a very—I've invited Cinthia for our listeners, and Cinthia comes and says there are too many rules, because BNI does have a lot of rules. But it is, I think, in large part, that structure and those rules that give it a lot of energy that it can sort of keep going. And I think maybe why your previous group had a hard time, you know, keeping things up because it does take an enormous amount of energy to keep networking groups alive, thriving, changing, growing, expanding, doing all the things they need to do. I want to talk about how that fits into the life of Miss Nott here, who just told us as we were prepping for our session today that she had a wellness center and that her wellness center was actually in Pleasant Hill, which happens to be where my office is. And I don't remember it being here, but I wasn't in this area at the time that the wellness center was operating. I want to understand a little bit more from you, Gail. You've done a lot of things. You've done the wellness center with massage therapists, you've done marketing, now you do business coaching. How does the through-line of spirituality fit with your growth through your career?

Gail Nott: Does that make sense as a question?

Michelle Walters: Yeah.

Gail Nott: Because there are times when I'm disconnected from my spirituality and disconnected from what I believe in with my spirituality in the world as a whole. And when I close in, as a protection method to protect myself and I kind of cut myself off, I actually lose touch with what I really want to do and who I really am. And it's kind of, it's a little challenging because I get this message from our culture that, "Oh, you're supposed to grow bigger, you're supposed to make lots of money, you're supposed to be a millionaire." Like even with coaching, who am I if I'm not a six-figure coach or a million-dollar coach, especially as a business coach? Does that mean I'm successful or not? So the through-line with my spirituality is that when I am connected to my soul and my purpose and let go of cultural and societal expectations, that's where I thrive. And the money flows, the abundance flows, whether I'm in giving or receiving, I believe that really is a circular experience. And I'm in this journey right now where it's just a few years ago where I wasn't sure if I even believed in God anymore. And when I say God, I mean more of a term to label spiritual connection. For a long time, I've been triggered by the word God because I grew up in a religious household. And so God to me was like this white guy who would always punish you if you said a bad word or had sex before marriage or, you know, anything like that you're not supposed to do. And as I got reconnected to my spirituality, like, "Hey, what do I really believe in?" I started going to spiritual communities. And sometimes they would use the word God as a placeholder for what cannot always be described. To work through it. Like when they say the word God, it's not like God, right? It is being, it is all, it's connectedness. And, yeah, that's just something that I'm still working through. But at the same time, it's almost like if I'm working through it, like I'm pushing through it, I'm not connected. So sometimes I just have to kind of just like, it just is, it's just oneness. It's that connection, I can feel it. I don't have to describe it. Because if I describe it, then I go into the left-brain mode and start, I don't know, start having to vocalize, which I know is challenging because we're on the podcast.

Michelle Walters: But it makes sense to me, Gail. We actually started off this podcast with a different show name. The original show name of our podcast was called, "It's All Connected," because we see the world as being pretty much all connected, one thing to another. And what I'm hearing from you is that when you're operating in that place of being deeply connected to your soul and your soul's purpose, then that's when business arrives, that's when abundance flows, that's when sort of all of the energy is in motion and in transit. And the best things happen.

Cinthia Varkevisser: And that in itself can be God, right? Because that is, it's the flow of being in, it's about being in the greater flow. So I totally get it. I like to call my god more like 5D, where you are just in alignment, there's no time, there's no space, it just is, just like you said. So I understand, I completely understand where you're coming from, especially when we start talking about business and how we are soul-aligned and purpose-driven. Because that inevitably comes up in a certain way. And here's the funny thing that I find is that your clients don't bring it up for you. They bring it up on themselves. So in a way, we all have to have our definition in order to be able to guide everyone to their definition. At least, that's right. Do you agree? I mean, I love thinking about Michelle, who didn't eat sugar or drink any alcohol, so that she would be in alignment to do her hypnotherapy for stop overeating sugar and drinking less, you know. So you and I, we are all, I believe, in the same place. So you're right, there is no definition to it. Because I believe that God is a state that we are vocal—our vocabulary is very limited. And so we just haven't created the language yet, right?

Michelle Walters: I think that's true. I want to remind all of our listeners right now that they are here with us on Mind Power Meets Mystic with me, Michelle Walters, and my co-host, Cinthia Varkevisser. We are honored today to be with Miss Gail Nott. Gail is a business coach, presently one of many, many things in Gail's timeline of successes. And she's here talking with us today about how spirituality fits into her job and her work. I find this whole topic really interesting because I worked for so many years in corporate, and you know, in corporate, you can't use the word God, you can't talk about sort of a higher power, you can't really talk about the synchronicity of things. These are all topics that are very much taboo. And one of the things that I have really loved about being my own business person is having the freedom to acknowledge these things, to tap into them, to go places that traditional businesses might not want to go. Do you find that is something that comes up as you work with your clients, Gail?

Gail Nott: Yeah, definitely. It's something where I don't necessarily put that on my label, because I do have friends who are spiritual coaches, spiritual life coaches, maybe even a spiritual business coach. So I am not at that place, maybe I will be someday. However, when I'm working with a client, I see them for who they are. And if they're attracted to me, they're attracted to work with me because of that, because we have this common value of universal connection. We may not say in a business session, like we're talking about their social media, or their marketing, or their breakups, "So how does God—?" But I may say things like, "Purpose. What is your purpose? What is your why?" Even just having them trust their gut. What do you feel like is the next best step for you? And you could see them, they might move their eyes up. One of the skills I'm trained in is NLP, neuro-linguistic programming. So they may move their eyes up to either side or down, and you could see them connecting to, I believe, their spirit. They may not label it that, but I see that connection. So the more that I can support them in trusting their gut, trusting their intuition, connecting with purpose, the more successful I know they're going to be. Now, there is a reality of making money, of accepting money, but that's usually an issue with more of how they value their own worth versus attracting the right clients. So that's something that I'm actually getting training more into is money mindset. Because it comes up all the time. So how they value money, how they can see it as more of an energy exchange. And I'm really loving the business owners I'm meeting through social media. Social media definitely has its faults as well, but I'm meeting more business owners who have embraced how money is an energy exchange. And they've also created a business model so that if a lack of funds is an issue, there's still some way that a potential client could work with them. Whether it's through a recording, or a book, or a video, or payment plans, or even sliding scale. I used to be taught that sliding scale was like a no-no, you don't do sliding scale. I'm seeing it more and more.

Michelle Walters: Yeah, no, I see it. And I try to, I really try to sort of set up my business in such a way that I can serve people, you know, with a free event or an inexpensive recording. Because, you know, sometimes it's the right time to make that kind of investment in oneself. And sometimes that investment needs to wait for, you know, more energy to come. I think that's one way I like to think about it.

Gail Nott: Yeah, definitely.

Michelle Walters: What is next, Gail?

Gail Nott: Oh, what's next for me? Speaking of changing our business models, because I am preparing to homeschool my daughter, we're going to do a style of homeschooling called unschooling, or self-directed education, where she gets to decide what she wants to learn. And then I help provide the resources, whether it's a class, or books, or field trips—field trips, slash travel, which I'm looking forward to. So since I'm preparing to homeschool my daughter, I want even more freedom in my business. So I am decreasing my private coaching hours, and increasing and opening up my membership program where people can join my program called Lift. I'm going to start it at, depending on when this gets published, it's going to start off at $9 a month for just the first few people to test it out. And then I'll slowly increase it as I get feedback on how I grow it. But that way, people get to get support in their business. It is a very accessible and affordable rate, obviously, but they'll get training on marketing, sales, business model, and coaching. I think I'm going to provide a monthly coaching call. I think that would be the right energy exchange there. But then in our online platform, they can always post something and I can comment back. And that way, if I'm with my daughter and we're traveling to—she loves Yellowstone, she wants to go to Yellowstone again. If we're in Yellowstone and I've got a signal, I could answer someone's question without having to worry about hopping on live on a Zoom call with that. So that's what's next. I'm opening up Lift again and hoping that it will be an accessible and effective way to support business owners and solopreneurs in growing their business.

Michelle Walters: I love it. I think that sounds fantastic. I think it sounds like an enormous value to get to work with somebody like you with so much experience in developing businesses and helping people with their marketing. I worked in corporate marketing for years and when I shifted over to doing solopreneur marketing, I was like, "I got this." It is such a different can of worms. So I think it is fantastic, Gail, that you are out there helping people with personal advice as to how to organize this and how to get it done. Because it is, it's hard work. It's a lot of work. It's hard, and I like to make things easy, but it's just really a lot of work.

Gail Nott: Yeah, it definitely can be if we look at it just as getting the word out and then working on our own stuff when it comes to promoting ourselves and being able to say what's great about what we do. But I think if we just focus on who we're helping, it makes it much easier.

Michelle Walters: Beautiful. Well, thank you so much for being on Mind Power Meets Mystic today.

Gail Nott: Thank you so much. It's so good to see both of you.