Judging by my title you may have guessed I’ve been on a bit of a spiritual journey myself. Which has led me to connect with some wonderful people who have built epic personal brands. So today I want to share my thoughts on why spiritual brands are more powerful.
But before we get into that, I’m guessing it will help if I explain what I mean by spirituality.
What is spirituality?
Let’s be super clear here. When I talk about spirituality, I am NOT talking about organised religion. I’ll save my thoughts on religion for another day. Or you can read about my childhood experiences in this recent Instagram post I shared.
If we talk in terms of dictionary definitions here’s a couple:
Collins dictionary says, “Spiritual means relating to people’s thoughts and beliefs, rather than to their bodies and physical surroundings.”
The Oxford dictionary says, “Relating to or affecting the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things.”
So when I talk about spirituality, I am referring to beliefs and practices. Connecting to spirit guides, the universe, divine beings etc. It’s about different levels of consciousness, expanding the mind, and questioning everything we’ve come to know about reality.
All in a quest to understand yourself, your life, and the universe at a deeper level.
Why is spirituality becoming more important?
We are in a very exciting time in humanity. With more and more people awakening, there is an increasing need for authenticity and a deeper sense of connection.
People are seeking truth more than ever. They’re no longer buying what the mass media is feeding them. They want to connect with people that aren’t afraid to talk about what’s truly important.
In the age of social media and smartphones, information is increasingly accessible. More people are creating and consuming content than ever. And the only way to truly stand out, is to be yourself.
That means actually speaking about things that matter to you without worrying what others think. Having an actual opinion.
On the topic of being yourself…
Here’s what I’ve come to realise… You can’t really be your true self, if you don’t know who you are. It may sound like I’m talking nonsense, but you’d be surprised how many people are walking around completely oblivious to the fact they don’t even really know themselves.
I know this, because for a long time, I was doing this too.
The problem arises because we’ve been brought up to be like everyone else. We grow up following rules and regiment. Wearing uniforms. We were literally taught to be the same.
So when it comes to being ourselves, we’ve forgotten who we actually are. We’ve become so good at following everyone else. We trust other people’s judgement more than our own.
We constantly seek external validation. Not wanting to stray too far out of the box for fear of being misunderstood. Or worse, not liked.
This is why so many brands ultimately end up being clones or replicas of the people they look up to. Without even realising, you end up morphing into the very people you’re learning from.
And that’s why so many people aren’t getting the results they desire in business. Because you can’t get results by being something you’re not.
So when you do the work to fully fall back in love with yourself. To discover who you are. To embody your truth. That’s when everything falls into place.
It’s on the other side of the hard inner work, that you truly get to become who you were meant to be.
When you start to view life in this way, you are undergoing a spiritual awakening.
For more information on the topic of spiritual awakening, read this very in depth blog post. (not my own)
My spiritual journey
Let me just preface this by saying, my spiritual awakening is far from over. There are always deeper layers to explore. Higher levels to reach, and so forth.
My awakening first began 4 years ago when I was diagnosed with depression and refused to go on medication. Instead, I opted for 6 weeks stress leave from my corporate job, which was the whole reason I was depressed in the first place. During my time off I discovered a ‘self belief’ course via an ad on Facebook. And this was the beginning of my inner work.
A few months later I had quit my job and started an online business. And through various ups and downs, I found myself going deeper and deeper into the realm of personal development and spirituality.
I’ve done all kinds of things – from yoga retreats, to seminars, to courses, to reading books, meditation, floating, reiki, and more.
But the true awakening only really began a few months ago. When I learnt about the concept of myself, my higher self, and my highest self. I highly recommend reading Wayne Dyer’s book Wishes Fulfilled if you’d like to learn more about this.
From there I became obsessed with uncovering deeper truths about myself. I did a past life regression therapy session, discovered my Human Design, learnt more about my astrology, and numerology.
And so I began to piece together all the important pieces that make me who I am. Which allowed me to connect back to my core essence. And therefore show up in a completely new way.
Which brings us to the main point of this post…
Why spiritual personal brands are more powerful
Now, let’s take a look at why spiritual personal brands are more powerful.
As I was undergoing my own spiritual awakening, I started to feel a pull to broaden my spectrum of who I follow and connect with online.
I was feeling so bored by scrolling through my feed and seeing all the same kind of content. This is how you beat the Instagram algorithm, this is what you should post if you want to succeed on social media, this is the type of content you should be putting out. So many should’s. But one key concept was missing. Not everyone is the same. And therefore, what works for one person, isn’t going to work for everyone else.
So I found myself drawn to people who were doing things differently. People who weren’t just regurgitating the same old content, but actually being themselves. It was magnetising.
And it reminded me, this was the type of content I used to post, before I allowed everyone else’s ‘should’s’ to get in my head. I stopped trusting myself, and as a result, I stopped fully being myself.
Once I realised this, I wanted to change that!
I decided to experiment. I dropped all the rules, and I just had FUN, and shared whatever I felt like sharing. And what ensued was magical, mystical, beautiful…
So I’m going to break this down into 4 reasons why spiritual personal brands are more powerful:
1. Deeper Awareness of Self
The deeper you get into your spirituality journey, the deeper your awareness of self becomes. Not just your physical sense of self, but higher realms as well.
When you understand yourself on a soul level, you can show up in a far more powerful way.
2. Deeper Sense of Creativity
When you’re more connected with yourself, you become more creative. Depending on how you operate you will channel your creativity in different ways. For me, it’s through writing, clothing, photography.
The more I connect to myself, the more my content captivates others. And the reason for this is because it’s no longer feeling forced. I’m not creating content because I have to, and I’m no longer creating content to fit within the rules. I’m allowing myself to put out whatever feels aligned to me at the time. And people can feel the energy channelling through me being in such a state of flow.
3. Deeper Sense of Purpose and Fulfilment
When you fully connect to yourself, you feel a far more deeper sense of purpose. There’s a reason why a lot of the successful business owners will encourage you to, as Simon Sinek so eloquently put it, ‘Start With Why’.
Because when you have a strong sense of why you do what you do, it’s easier to show up despite whatever obstacles may be thrown in your way. When you know yourself on a deeper level, you will have more energy to show up. You will feel on purpose, inspired, and driven.
And your audience will feel it too.
4. Deeper Connection with Audience
Recently I’ve spoken out on so many ‘taboo’ topics. News, religion, government, race, child trafficking, psychedelics and spirituality.
Each post got scarier and scarier as they got deeper into my core truth. My opinions are often very different to most people I know, so I wondered if I would cause division in my online space.
But at the same time, I knew I was totally safe because I’ve done the inner work to not allow fear, shame, or guilt control me anymore. When you face off with yourself, and accept and give love to all the things that used to make you feel these emotions. You no longer feed into those stories, and then the scary things no longer seem so scary.
I trusted my instincts and shared whatever I felt called to share. And because I was showing up from a space of love, that’s exactly what I was met with.
People didn’t necessarily agree with my opinions exactly. But we were able to have healthy conversations, open our eyes to new perspectives, and connect on a deeper level. And the people that did share similar experiences were so appreciative and felt so seen, and that allowed us to form an even deeper connection.
I’m no longer around for the fake engagement. I want the real, human to human experience. The real thoughts from people’s hearts. And that’s what your audience is craving too.
So that’s my thoughts on why spiritual personal brands are more powerful. Stay tuned for my next post on how to bring this into your own branding.
And I’d love to know your thoughts. If you’re building a personal brand or business, do you think there’s a need for more spirituality to be brought into branding?