024 How to make your business more resilient, flexible and sustainable as a visionary leader

Welcome
Hi and welcome to The Miracle Zone Podcast. I’m Catarina Andrade, and today I’m talking about something I didn’t plan, how to plot twist-proof your spiritual business. It’s a bit meta, because this episode itself is a plot twist! I was going to cover something else, but inspiration struck, and here we are.

Episode Summary
If the thought of your business and finances being thrown off course by something unexpected keeps you up at night, you’re not alone. I share real stories - like my client Homaya’s last-minute venue change for an in-person event and other clients dealing with personal injuries and family emergencies - and how their multi-6 and 7+ figure businesses continued to run without missing a beat. I open up about my own experience having to cancel my wedding two days before it was meant to happen, and how having the right support system made all the difference.

This episode is all about building flexibility, resilience, and support into your business so you can keep going, even when things get wild. I talk about the emotional and practical sides of handling plot twists, and why having systems, team, and the ability to step away is so vital for visionary leaders, plus what to focus on depending on where you are in the 3 stages of business. 

Key Takeaways

• Plot twists and life initiations are part of the entrepreneurial journey, especially for spiritual business owners and light leaders working with energy 
• Flexibility and adaptability in your business are essential; they let you respond to challenges without everything falling apart and finances being affected
• Building a team and delegating management frees you to focus on your highest work in your Miracle Zone, or be fully offline in times of crisis or rest
• Systems, support, and clear communication are what allow your business to bend (but not break) when the unexpected happens
• The more sustainable your business, the more your nervous system can relax - expanding your capacity to receive more clients, cashflow and miracles 

Resources & Links

• Join the Pillar of Light MiracleMind to expand your nervous system capacity to receive (money, clients and aligned opportunities), clear subconscious and energetic blocks keeping you playing small, and activate your Pillar of Light channel for max power and radiance. Step into your highest potency, expression and impact as a leader here: https://bit.ly/join-pillar-of-light

Thanks for listening, plot twists are part of the journey, and you’re more resilient than y

• Join the Pillar of Light MiracleMind to expand your nervous system capacity to receive (money, clients and aligned opportunities), clear subconscious and energetic blocks keeping you playing small, and activate your Pillar of Light channel for max power and radiance. Step into your highest potency, expression and impact as a leader here: https://bit.ly/join-pillar-of-light
• Download your free Miracle Business Blueprint, a 7-part framework to create a thriving, scalable, and self-sustaining 7+ figure business that gives you more freedom, not less, plus a process to identify where to focus first to lead in your Miracle Zone today: https://www.catarinaandrade.com/blueprint/
• Youtube Channel: @catarinaandrade
• Instagram: @themiraclefrequency
• Website: https://www.catarinaandrade.com/
• Listen to Catarina’s music on your favorite platform: https://bit.ly/the-miracle-frequency-music

Chapters

• 0:00 Plot Twist Within a Plot Twist: Why Flexibility Matters
• 5:00 Real-Life Plot Twists: Event Venue Crisis
• 7:48 When Life Happens: Injuries, Family, and Business
• 10:59 Creating Space for Life’s Curveballs
• 14:38 My Wedding Plot Twist: The Power of Delegation
• 19:13 Being the Angel: Supporting Clients Through Crisis
• 22:07 Building a Bend-and-Snap Business
• 27:24 Your Next Step: Bringing Flexibility Into Your Business

Transcript

The Miracle Zone EP24

[00:00:00] Catarina Andrade: Hello and welcome to another episode of The Miracle Zone Podcast, and today I'm gonna talk about how to plot, twist proof your spiritual business. I am laughing a little bit as I say this because I was gonna talk about something completely different today and I just felt inspired to talk about this. So it's a plot twist within a plot twist.

[00:00:24] But here's the thing, right? You aren't just running a muggle business and you aren't just a muggle visionary leader, right? And so when we're on this path of evolution and serving. Others on the path of evolution, we experience initiations and plot twists and things going completely the way we didn't expect them, right?

[00:00:49] It's part of our initiation. It's part of how we create in the world, right? Whether it's something that you've been doing a healing process and you're integrating or going through initiation, or whether it's something that. I don't know, maybe you're just at a particular time in your business or in your lifetime or where there's a cycle that's transforming and everything in your business and life is going up in flames, or whether you're a parent and something happens to your kid, these are plot twists that can happen in our lives, and I see this all the time with my clients. That plot twist happen and also with myself. And so I'm really excited to talk about that because I've had a recent experience with one of my clients that was a perfect example and reminder of why it's so important to plot twist proof your business.

[00:01:41] And it's also a topic that's really near and dear for me, so I'm gonna share a personal story as well related to that. Let me just begin first by sharing what happened recently that's inspiring me to talk about this topic. So one of my clients who has been on the podcast before Homaya, she recently held an amazing event called Golden.

[00:02:02] It was the great gathering and it took place recently in Portugal and there were light leaders flying in from all over the world to attend her event. And so I support her both with the mentorship aspect of bringing this vision into form, but also through a business management perspective. I support her team as well, and so I'm intimately involved in the creation of this beautiful event that took place recently, and she experienced a massive plot twist as one of the initiations of bringing this.

[00:02:36] Massive vision to life, right? That really left a really strong energetic imprint on the fabric of time and space and all of the things. But part of that unexpected things happen. So to just summarize it really briefly is. There was a venue that was chosen for this event to take place. It was a beautiful garden forest kind of vibe venue that was really energetically potent and everything was lined up and organized and ready to go for this event.

[00:03:14] People were already bought tickets or already flying in, and then about 48 hours or so, 48 to 72 hours before the event takes place, we were informed her team and her, they were informed and I got the call as well that the venue could no longer be used because there was a heat wave and there was a just danger of there being fires happening because wildfires are a problem in Portugal at this time of year.

[00:03:45] And so because the venue and the location of the venue was a beautiful forest location. Unfortunately, all the forests were closed off for public use, and so the venue couldn't be used. And so with little to no notice, all of a sudden there was no venue with all of these people flying in for this amazing event, including amazing guest speakers that were also showing up.

[00:04:08] So you can imagine this is the plot twist that probably we all have nightmares about. If we are organizing event, I can't think of anything else. Worse that could happen than that, right? And within about 24 hours, the plot twist was. Untwisted and resolved itself and a new venue was found. That was amazing and ended up being even more perfect.

[00:04:34] Everybody agreed who attended the event. We were all there. It ended up being an ocean venue in a very different frequency, and it ended up being exactly perfect for what was needed for the event. So as all plot twists, It happened for a reason and was right on time. But nevertheless, as a business owner, you can imagine that would be really ah an intense thing to live through.

[00:04:59] A really intense initiation of holding the frequency, holding the light, anchoring a vision and moving forward, and also bending time and space to rearrange things very quickly. So this is just one example of something coming out of left field that could throw everything in your business. Off center and have really big financial implications and really impact your business if you can't be flexible, right?

[00:05:24] Because I think what we're really aiming for here is flexibility to be able to dodge and move and bend and shape shift not just ourselves, but our business and our offerings and how we're serving and how we're offering them in response to these types of plot twists.

[00:05:42] So some other examples I had, one of my clients for a long time was Susanna Barkataki and she actually injured her wrist. So she went to visit a retreat venue, I believe it was in Costa Rica, that she was doing an amazing retreat with Blair Amani, they were co-leading a retreat and they went to do a retreat site visit.

[00:06:03] And while they were doing the visit, she actually slipped and fell and hurt her wrist. I don't know if she broke it. I think she might have broken it. It was a serious injury. And so all of a sudden, can you imagine for the type of business that, that all of us lead, whether it's. It's something that involves content creation.

[00:06:25] It involves delivering classes and teaching to your clients. It involves travel. It involves many things, right? Also, there's your own self-care that you need to do your own practices. She's an amazing yoga teacher. She does her own yoga practices. Not that it all has to be, physical. It's one of the things that she teaches, but.

[00:06:44] It still impacts your life and your ability to get dressed and your ability to brush your teeth. I remember her family had to support her in. Just getting dressed in the basic things in the home and that just takes more time and that takes time away from your business that you can spend in your business things.

[00:07:00] And then she couldn't really type and so that was a big thing too that could have really impacted her business, right? If all of a sudden for many weeks while her arm healed, she wouldn't be able to do anything and completely stop

[00:07:15] if she hadn't done this work of making sure that her business could be flexible and cater to these things that are happening right and left field. She also had a TED talk that was coming up that she was preparing for, and she ended up doing the TED talk with her arm and her wrist injured as well.

[00:07:32] And so she was able to really adapt to what was happening and to still keep the business going, to still keep the programs going I remember there were two launches that were going on at that time, in addition to preparing for her TED Talk, in addition to her having speaking engagements.

[00:07:47] So there was a lot going on that had to bend and cater to this. A thing that happened unexpectedly in her life. I know another year she also had her son who had an injury as well, and so of course as a mother, she had to be able to take time to care for her son. That's something that I'm living right now in my own life is this particular.

[00:08:12] Few weeks right now. I've really been dedicating myself to doctor's appointments and physiotherapy appointments. Many of them weekly, multiple with my son, different tests, right? I decided really I need to create time and space to prioritize his health, and so other things have had to shift around. That right.

[00:08:35] Another client of mine, Nisha Moodley, several years ago, I remember something that she experienced is she was hiking with her family and she actually slipped and suffered a head injury and I believe she had a concussion. And so I was her business manager at the time, and I remember getting the message about that, right?

[00:08:54] And so how do we create businesses that allow for life to happen to us? And so that we can not be taken out by them because this is something, especially if you're a solopreneur or if you have a small team, but a lot of clients and your business is successful and thriving, that there's so much that's weighing.

[00:09:18] on you, not necessarily weighing. There's so much that's dependent on you, right? And these are the kind of things that as your business grows, start weighing on you and keeping you awake at night is, what if something happens to me or what if something happens to someone in my family?

[00:09:34] What if I need to take time off? I've had also several clients who've had to take space to take care of their parents. If whether they're sick or whether somebody has passed and also creates space for grieving, right? So life is gonna life. It doesn't matter how successful, multiple seven figures your business is.

[00:09:56] Life is gonna life, especially if you are doing this work of anchoring more light and love in the planet. And you're going through these initiations and also you're human. And so there's these cycles that we go through as humans, as parents, as children, where we need to put our attention in different places.

[00:10:17] And so building business that's bringing you freedom isn't just about, this laptop lifestyle. I wanna be able to fly to Bali whenever I want. No, it's creating this ability to deal with these curve balls that hit. So how do we create that in our business, especially as it grows because we find that if we don't create spaciousness for that, our nervous system can never really relax completely into allowing in more clients.

[00:10:49] And more money to flow through our business and more offerings and more team. Because there's always this part of us subconsciously that is afraid of what if something happens to me, right? What if something happens to me and I'm responsible for all these people's salaries and livelihoods. I'm responsible for delivering on all of these clients.

[00:11:10] Products and masterminds and classes that they requested and that they've purchased and that they're expecting, right? And so if a part of us is afraid that if something goes wrong, we're not gonna be able to follow through, then we're going to keep ourselves smaller, keep our businesses smaller than they could be because of this fear.

[00:11:31] So how do we make our businesses more flexible and more adaptable to these initiations, to these curve balls that can come and affect us, whether it's a sick child the, a parent that passes away and we need to create space for grieving and also maybe we need to handle their estate right. Or a venue changing last minute.

[00:11:54] And we need to be able to. Quickly come up with something that can allow us to still move forward and not completely stop us. So to give you the answer I'm gonna share to you how I discovered this in my own life through a very personal story that I don't know if I've actually shared before.

[00:12:14] So two days before my wedding to my now ex-husband. He was assaulted and ended up in the hospital, and so I had the initiation at that point in time of two days before my wedding, having to cancel it, having to let all of the guests know that this is no longer happening, of course, when we organize the wedding, it's like a big thing, and so we did a lot, and so there was the venue and there was the catering, and there was guests flying in from all over the world.

[00:12:54] At the time I was living in Cape Town and South Africa, I had guests flying from all over the place and family flying in from all over the place, and they were already all there, right? It's not like, oh, cancel your tickets. The wedding is not happening in two days. It's because it was a very international wedding.

[00:13:10] People were flying in from all over the place. And so the guests were already there. We had already spent time with them. Everybody was excited for the wedding, right? However, the wedding couldn't go on because sadly, instead, I had to go to the hospital to visit my then fiance who was. So concussed and had serious head injury, right?

[00:13:36] And so I had to be doing that instead of getting married. There was no way he could walk down the aisle. That was pretty clear. He ended up being in the hospital for two weeks. And so it was just something that, it was a big curve ball, right? And in that experience, I learned something really important.

[00:13:59] Which is this. I had decided to work with a wedding event planner and. It was a big investment, but at the time I was traveling a lot for work all over the world, and I think my travel was like 50 to 75% and I was just like, this wedding is not gonna happen unless I have somebody who can handle all the things and all the details, and I'm just giving them the vision and the guidance and their organizing and coordinating all of the things.

[00:14:31] So I had this amazing wedding planner that I was working with. Lisa, her name was Lisa, and she was a freaking angel. Not just because throughout the process of all the planning, but this is what it looked like. Okay. I found out I could not get married two days later as planned and. All I had to do, bless her angelic soul was call Lisa.

[00:15:01] Actually, my sister, I think made the call because I was obviously going through a lot emotionally. My sister called Lisa and said, unfortunately, this wedding can't go ahead. This is what happened. We need to call it off and we need to inform all the guests. Lisa, bless her angelic heart said, don't worry about it, I'll take care of it.

[00:15:29] Okay. So I got to focus on processing what was happening. So obviously I was going through a lot emotionally, crying, all the things. I also was going to the hospital to be with him. I also was working with the police because he had been assaulted and we were trying to make sure that. We figured out what happened.

[00:15:51] And so there was that happening. And there were also a bunch of wedding guests around, right? And that was actually really beautiful because they were able to be there and support me to go through this instead of being this beautiful occasion, this really challenging occasion. But I had all of my beloved family and nearest friends close by to support me and so I could spend time with them.

[00:16:13] I had to do almost nothing. To logistically speaking, to cancel this wedding.

[00:16:24] It was just that call that my sister made and she handled everything, informed everyone. Okay. That really affected me, first of all, because I realized she was an angel. But secondly, I realized actually rather recently, so I've been offering through my business management agency, business management support to visionaries and light leaders for eight years now.

[00:16:49] I realized as these things started happening to my clients, and again, they work with me for sometimes many years, right? With me and my agency over many years, as we grow their businesses from being smaller, grow their teams. Systematize their operations, et cetera, so they can scale. This is not an overnight thing, as is painted in.

[00:17:14] A lot of this kind of marketing speak, like we grow consistently and still magically and still quantum leaping, but over time, over the years. And so it's not that these disastrous things are happening to my clients that I work with just for a few months. It's, over the course of a couple years, life is gonna lie.

[00:17:30] And in these occasions where this has happened to my clients, as I've shared some examples. I have had the privilege of being that angel for somebody. Me and my team also from a business management perspective. So I will get the call or somebody on my team will get the call that, oh, I slipped, I fell.

[00:17:55] I have a concussion. I'm need to cancel all my calls for the rest of the week. I don't know what's gonna happen. We need to, but it. They get to worry about their health, be with their family, go to the appointments instead of having to worry about keeping the business running or stopping the business and the big impact that they can have.

[00:18:17] Because obviously we care about our clients. We also just don't want it. We can't like not show up for calls, right? So it's been. Every time that happens, it's like that thing that all of us dread but don't think about, but naturally is gonna happen at some point. And if we don't have the foundations in place in our business, we can't have that flexibility.

[00:18:38] So obviously. This stuff happens and we don't wanna think about it. We don't wanna jinx our business, but it's something that as our business grows and gets bigger, we really wanna plan that so that our business can be sustainable and so that our business can feel like something that.

[00:18:55] Supports us and allows us to, in addition, to be magical and mystical and create all the things to also be human, to be able to stay home when our kid is sick, to be able even to take a vacation. I've been showing examples of when things go wrong from left field, but also when we are capable of adapting to when things go wrong, whether it's.

[00:19:17] A sick parent that needs our attention. All of a sudden we need to fly overnight to another country. As happens to my clients sometimes or something like some of the other curve balls that I shared. If we can cushion and make our business flexible enough to have management support to allow us to bend.

[00:19:39] I just thought of the bend and snap to bend and snap.

[00:19:43] Oh my gosh. To bend and snap, bend and snap. When things come out of left field. Then we can also proactively pick, oh, on this week or these two weeks, I'm taking time off. I've had clients take off two weeks or three weeks, even mid-launch, to go on a pilgrimage. Or to go and have the vacation with their family and be completely offline and the business can keep running itself.

[00:20:09] Why? Because the business, if something were to happen to you, is able to keep going, right? Because you have those systems in place. And so I wanted to really share this with you today because I think it's something that doesn't get talked about enough because it's. Can feel low vibe or negative vibe to think about, okay, what happens if something happens to my business?

[00:20:31] But when the business is so reliant on us, that is also a liability, right? And it's a risk. And as much as we tell ourselves in our mentally that, ah, everything's gonna be fine, everything's gonna be fine. Sometimes life's, and we get these initiations and so we don't want that to keep us up at night.

[00:20:50] We wanna have a really clear plan. It could be like, not necessarily a succession plan, but an escalation plan for what is hap If I'm unable to be here and do this, then who on my team can handle that and who's going to be rearranging that? And how do I make that something that is always there as a safety net in my business so that it can be sustainable, so that I can take a sabbatical if I want, or I can just take a vacation if I want, or I can take a long weekend if I need.

[00:21:20] And that everything doesn't just fall apart. So part of it is systems, part of it is team. But I think what I've really learned through my experience with this amazing angelic wedding planner. Who saved my life is the importance of delegating the management so that all you have to do is say the word and then things can get rearranged around you, and that's one of the things that we were able to do.

[00:21:50] As I mentioned earlier, what inspired me to share this today is as she experienced her big venue change was okay. We were able to very quickly be like, okay. This just happened. What's our game plan? What does she need to focus on? And a lot of that was actually preparing for the actual event itself and the energetics of bringing people in.

[00:22:18] And she still needed to visit the venue, connect with the venue. There's lots of energetic, importance there too. But once we decided on that, a lot of the communication that needed to happen, a lot of the rearrangement. Of all the vendors, all the team, all the participants, everybody had to be informed of a new venue situation.

[00:22:39] It was beautiful because from a management perspective, we were able to have. A game plan for how we were going to move and cater to this most flexibly and who would be doing what. And so it was amazing to see the team really come together on really short notice and show up to support us to pivot, right?

[00:23:07] And that's what made it really. A pivot proof business is we were like, okay, you need to contact the venues. Okay, you're taking care of that. You need to contact all the vendors, all the team you're taking care of that you need to let the participants know, okay, we're taking care of that. And Homaya was really able to anchor into, okay, the new energetic of the new location of what's really wanting to come through of what this means, how this shifts the energy of the event and be present for the more critical decisions of, okay, what is the new venue?

[00:23:41] Is this, the new venue? Is not, what do we wanna shift? What do we wanna think about? For example the seating and the geometry, what feels right on this particular piece of land connecting to this particular transmission that's wanting to come through, right? She had the space to do that, and we had the space to have those conversations because it wasn't just her, right?

[00:24:03] So imagine if it was just her and having to figure all of that out, then there wouldn't be space to do that higher level. Frequency work that she's such a brilliant vessel for if the logistics all needed to be handled by her. And I think for me it was really beautiful and I, we, I was celebrating this with her and with her team about how we were able to so quickly adapt to this new venue.

[00:24:29] It was like a miracle for sure that came through. So that's my invitation to you is to really think about. In my business and where it's at now, and it really depends where you are, right? If you're still at the solopreneur phase, you're still having to do a lot of the things. But starting to even just bring in an assistant, starting to build out, that team will give it some flexibility already to begin to bring the sustainability in so that not everything is on your shoulders.

[00:25:00] Stretch that receiving muscle, stretch that delegation muscle, and stretch that. Capacity to not have to be involved in all of the things. Then you have a small team. And when you have a small team, you're managing all of the team, but you're already thinking about the next step, which is, okay, I'm spending so much time managing, I should be more leading, visioning, channeling, transmitting being the pillar of light in my business.

[00:25:26] I need to, as a next step, delegate the management of the business. And so you're already thinking about how do I bring in that management structure and management layer. And that then allows you to step into the leadership role, the CEO role, and also the role of really being this pillar of light in your business and a pillar of light that can boldly make big moves and say yes to big initiations and not be shaken.

[00:25:57] Shaking in fear that something's gonna go wrong, that's gonna completely destabilize and throw everything off track because you don't have that solid foundation in your business to allow you to grow to seven plus figures, multiple seven figures, and keep growing and growing because the responsibility starts to feel like a lot.

[00:26:18] And so the risk of something happening that will take you out feels suffocating. And so you have that block there. So that's my invitation. Think about where you are along these three phases and what is my next step to start bringing in that flexibility more, bringing in that sustainability, more so that I can bring down the risk of this particular thing.

[00:26:43] I can be bold and take risks in all the other ways in my business. But I wanna make sure if something does happen in my life that is left field, that it's not going to put my business at risk, put my team at risk, put me at risk of everything coming to a screeching halt, or me being overwhelmed in terms of having to handle all of the things in addition to processing whatever emotions are coming up from this initiation.

[00:27:13] All right, my loves. I hope this is helpful for you. I think these are the higher level conversations that I have with my management clients that are so important and nobody really likes to talk about, but it's all about how can I be more and more in my miracle zone, and I look forward to connecting with you on our next episode.