How To Recover From Burnout As An Entrepreneur with Krista Ripma

Eric: Hey, welcome Krista. Thank you so much for joining us.

Krista: Thanks for having me. I’m happy to be here.

Eric: Yes, of course. It’s my pleasure. So, good to meet you and see you. To start, the big question, can you just tell us a little bit about your background and your story that you’d like to share at this time?

Krista: Sure. So, my background is in visual storytelling. So, I have a marketing agency, marketing company, but really, for me, it’s about helping people build relationships with their customers and creating authentic connections around whatever it is they’re offering. My background started in Hollywood. I wanted to be a film producer. And I worked in LA on TV sets and movie sets and moved into development, reading scripts for a living, and was not feeling a whole lot. 

So, I left Hollywood and moved to Aruba, where I got connected with a yoga teacher there and helped her launch her brand, and realized sort of the power of doing business with heart. And got deported from Aruba, came home and started helping healers and artists, just cool people build their brands, create abundance, create success. I have this unique gift around I think truth selling and just creating authenticity for people and their brands that resonate with their dream clients or customers, and Authentic Audience was born.

So, that’s my company. We’re three and a half years old. And I do lots of coaching around marketing but mostly resistance. The entrepreneur, solopreneur lifestyle can get lonely and challenging and I like to work with people on their strategies around that. Yeah, that’s what we do. That’s the tea.

Eric: Well, thank you so much for sharing that. Now, when you’re talking about when you were in that time of your life doing the production or the work that you were doing in Hollywood, you said you weren’t feeling it. And then there was these words that you used in terms of where you ended up, authentic connection, truth selling, these things. So, were those perspectives part of your life at the time when you were in Hollywood? Was there a transition at some point where you discovered more that that was what you were interested in?

Krista: Yeah. I think that’s a good question. I sort of jokingly say that, before I was 24, I didn’t really know I was alive. I think that I was just ego going through space and time. And so for me at the time when I was working in Hollywood, working on these big budget shows, movies, it was my dream job at the time. And wherever I’ve ended up, I’m very blessed that at the time, whatever it is I’ve done in the last decade or so, whatever I was doing was what I wanted to be doing and was my dream job at the time.

I think when I really got into yoga and meditation and started finding some more spiritual teachers, I realized that there was just something bigger going on. But the truth and the authenticity I think has been with me for a really long time. I’ve been called righteous at times in my truth, and it’s almost shocking to me when people aren’t honest and transparent, even since I was young. So, turns out, it’s a great business model and people love authenticity. I didn’t know when I righteously created this business model out of just being so screwed over so many times and just seeing the darker sides of business within every industry, every industry has it.

And what’s possible if you create a more heart-centered, the authenticity just sort of naturally became a big part of it and telling the truth, and it’s a culture, I hold my team to really high standards of sharing their truths. And I do it all the time. And when you work with me or even or just in my life, it’s kind of what I demand. But it’s become, I would say, stronger and heightened, and less righteous and more compassionate, I’d like to think, over time.

Eric: That’s cool. Because it’s not automatically given that if you say to somebody be authentic, that they know how to do that, right?

Krista: Yeah. So, I help people with that and tell their stories because to me, and it does come full circle because marketing to me is just good storytelling, and it’s sharing your why and it’s being truthful and finding ways to connect that feel authentic. And so, those are my strategies. It’s helping people write letters to their dream clients or tell their stories or create these transformational experiences for people focusing on the benefits on the why on the transformation versus what’s included and features and stuff like that. So, it comes pretty naturally back around in how I help people, and I have tools, because it doesn’t come naturally to everybody.

Eric: Thinking about the 10 step programs for things, isn’t like the first step, or at least one of the first few steps is to know and see that you have a problem? So, what are some of the ways that one could recognize either for them personally or for their business that they are being inauthentic?

Krista: I think that if you get really quiet, you know, and only you know if you’re bullshitting somebody. I think as a culture, we are becoming more conscious about what we buy and who we buy from and where our money goes. I’ve definitely seen that people care a lot more about who they’re giving their money to, which is great. And I think that we can really smell authenticity on somebody. And for me, it’s about ego.

So, we talk about resistance a lot. And a resistance to sharing something personal or a resistance to sharing the truth or resistance to hiding behind your brand instead of as the CEO or founder stepping in front of it a little bit more. Because I don’t like to call somebody inauthentic but we talk about resistance, and how it shows up and how the ego plays such a big role in the resistance we face every day, and how if we can find awareness around that, when we’re comparing ourselves to other people on social media or online or just all of the different millions ways we compare ourselves to other people, that allows us to not launch or not share the thing or not post the thing, and where that comes from and how to sort of overcome that and just tell resistance to get in for the ride. Because I believe that resistance and authenticity go hand in hand.

So, if you’re feeling resistance towards doing something, it often means it’s what you should be doing and it’s the authentic thing to do. So, how to recognize that and sort of do it anyway.

Eric: And what I’m also hearing in that is that there’s, inherent in it is a journey. There’s no one answer. It’s not like, oh, Krista, tell me the magic thing that’s going to be true for everybody. It’s like, well, it’s a process. We start here and then we go here, and then it’s likely going to loop multiple times, multiple iterations. There’s no end point. Oh, and by the way, I said 10 step program and my production assistant corrected me and said that it’s 12 steps.

Krista: 12 steps.

Eric: I like to skip steps apparently. It’s this funny thing, totally tangential, but I have this mala that I do, mantras on. Sometimes you buy mantras and they’ll have the wrong number of beads on them, like have 107 beads instead of 108. It’s just a joke that’s come up, well, you’ll get to enlightenment faster that way.

Krista: Yeah. 104 instead of 108.

Eric: So, speaking of this, we’re talking about business things and spirituality. And I think this is a major interest of yours, spirituality meets strategy. And I think for a lot of entrepreneurs, experts, business owners, these two areas of life can seem very distant and unrelated. And I’d love to hear your thoughts and feelings around this. And first, what does this look like in your life and business, these two things coming together?

Krista: Yeah. It really goes hand in hand. For me, entrepreneurship and business is one of the most spiritual experiences I’ve ever had. And I also struggle and have struggled with making money and being on the spiritual path. I was sitting in Nepal at a temple with some Babas up there. And I was asking them, can you be a householder because we’re not yogis, we haven’t given up everything to be on that path. So, we’re called householders. And can you be a householder and still be on the spiritual path? And his answer was, Shiva worships money, like we love money. It’s just about being in service and the intention. And they jokingly call me the business yogi now when I go up there and visit them, they’re like, oh, business yogi. It’s this joke because it’s like my ego, my whole Lila is can I be on the spiritual path and make money. And to me, yes, of course. The answer’s yes.

And for me, it’s just everything is a prayer. So, from washing the dishes to sending emails. And it’s just all the intention. And for me, what really actually helped me with this was being in service is really easy. It’s easy on our egos, it’s just an easy way to live. And so once I separated myself from my business and realized I was here to be in service of my business, then every day I can wake up and be in service. So, instead of complaining about how many emails I have or how many meetings I have or how many projects I have, it’s like, well, I get to be in service today to my business. And for me, it’s great because I help people for a living. So, it feels really good to see that success and to see my strategies create success for people I care about. But for me, it just goes hand in hand.

I asked my business what she needs, and then I create a strategy because, people talk about manifesting things all the time, and that’s fabulous. But you also need to act and have a to do list and get it done, and action is required when you’re growing a business. So, for me, that’s why I say spirituality meets strategy because I listen to my intuition, I do my cord cutting rituals. I light my incense, I ring my bell before I do a podcast, but then I sit down and I do the finance meetings, I create the spreadsheets, I build the strategy, I create the budgets. You can’t really have one without the other.

So, for me, spirituality, strategy, feminine, masculine. It’s just a balance, Yin Yang. And when that can be really balanced and I’m not just fully in the feminine or taking baths all day or just meditating for hours and not actually doing something versus just working 12-hour days on my emails and just getting really, I get a little manic if I work too much. And really finding the balance between those two things is where success and peace sort of live for me.

Eric: Yeah. You talking about bringing up the Babas in Nepal and the householder question reminded me of a segment of Autobiography of the Yogi, where they talk a lot about householder life in that book, and actually the four stages of life, and one stage is of actually being a householder. But some of the saints that Yogananda meets in that book are like, they’re married, they have children, his guru had children. Yukteswar’s guru had children. Anyway, this saying comes, I remember is that because they asked, oh, how could this person be a saint? And it’s something like, God manifests in all forms unless you try and restrict God to a rule or something like this.

And I think this is relevant to what you just said because I think, and it kind of ties into the inauthenticity too because so often we see a model, we see somebody or something that we want to be like or accomplish. And we’re like, okay, I’m going to do everything like that person to get the things that they have. I see the fruit that’s come into their life and I see how they got it. So, I’m going to be that, I’m going to do the same things, and therefore, I’ll get the money or I’ll get the fame or whatever it is. But it’s a discovery process. You have to find what wants to be expressed through you. And then the fruits come as a result of that alignment.

Krista: Yeah. I call that trying to live somebody else’s dharma. So, we all have such a purpose here. And many of our purposes, our business are to create things, songs, music, art, courses, whatever it is. One of the people that I met that was truly living in her purpose more than anyone else I’ve ever met is someone who did my spray tan for my wedding. It was so clear, and that’s, so I don’t want to get too high and mighty or woo woo about it because your purpose can be, like it’s so obvious to me when I met her, she had like a two month waitlist and totally crazy, I’m like, I got to see what this lady is all about because I’m all about marketing, and I’m like, how is this possible, she does spray tans.

And it was one of the most amazing, you can feel it. It raises the energy, it raises the vibration when someone’s in flow and getting to connect with somebody in flow, it raises your vibration, it’s healing. And from the moment I walked in, she had hand made all these little things. Her lotion she put on after she made from scratch, it’s vegan, the smell, all of this stuff like, her space was just so clean. The letter, the follow up notes I got from her afterwards, I’m like, man, this is so her purpose. Now her purpose is not to spray tan people, it’s to make people feel beautiful. My purpose isn’t marketing, it’s to remind people they can fly. It’s connection. It’s true that the authenticity, marketing’s my what, it’s my how. And that’s going to change over time. 

But meeting her, it was just like, this is her dharma. The way she even like spray tanned me it was like art. And I think when we can find that in ourselves and just go there and do that thing. And my father in law says, when you’re really in the flow, it’s like you don’t look at the clock, you don’t think about getting up to get a cup of coffee. You’re just fully dropped into whatever you’re doing. Half the time when I do my strategy calls, I’m blacked out, I’m somewhere else. It is so flow for me when I do that. And that’s kind of the secret to business. And he’s not woo woo, he’s not spiritual at all. And he was just talking about how you can create success in your life.

I interviewed him about being retired. So, yeah, I think when you do what someone else is doing, it’s like such a disservice not only to you, but to everyone because you’re lowering that instead of raising that sort of vibration that people get to experience you.

Eric: And experience is such an important word in that story because I think what you’re really speaking to when you’re talking about this woman who does a spray tan, I mean, I laughed at first because you introduce the story with, oh, it’s spray tan. It’s such a thing. It’s such a, oh, how could this be? But then hearing okay, yes, it’s not just that. That’s maybe just like, 1% of what’s going on there, whatever. But she really delivered an experience. It’s like why do we want to take pictures of sunsets and smell flowers? It’s because they deliver an experience.

I think an important aspect of learning about myself is this surrender to, I don’t necessarily know what experience I’m meant to create. If I try to control who I am and what I’m supposed to be doing, there can be a stillness, there could be a rigidness that’s brought into life, a repetitiveness. And it’s trying to corral items in the ocean. They keep floating away, but if I’m just a vehicle for something to flow through, it was a little bit scary for me to come into this because I had identified with a certain role that I was playing. Let’s say it’s an entrepreneur or I compose music, so let’s say it’s one of those. And so, I would get used to playing this role. But then somehow the faucet would be turned off on whatever was allowing that to flow. One day I would be writing music straight for like six weeks, like flowing through me, and then one morning, it just would be off.

Now, at that point in the past, I’ve struggled with how to deal with that. I could try to force it. But now I’m like, oh, okay, well, I have to wait now to see what my next purpose is to be. And there’s sometimes these periods of waiting where nothing is happening. And I definitely as an entrepreneur, I struggle with that because I’m like, if I felt like if I was busy, that was equivalent to productivity or whatever, and I felt guilty if I wasn’t doing something.

Krista: Yeah. Welcome to the club. I think we glamorize being busy. I mean, I do anyway. I used to brag about how stressed out I was. It’s only recently that changed for me. And I agree that those lulls can be really stressful and just eat away. And one of my mentors told me right before I started my company, she was like, you’re going to have highs and you’re going to have lows, and you’ve got to ride both waves. So, there will be time of abundance and too much work and not enough time. And then there will be time where you’re just wondering what’s next.

I know this might sound dramatic but I’m pretty dramatic. Something happened to me recently where I hit a wall. And we’re going to talk about this when I interview you soon. And that’s burnout. I hit a wall recently, and it was almost like a mini death, like a part of me had to die. And I know that sounds dramatic but it really was. And I almost had to mourn that part of myself, even though it wasn’t serving me anymore. And I think as entrepreneurs and humans, just being alive, we evolve. We’re always evolving, we’re always evolving. We’re shedding layers. I give this whole analogy about the bus or people get off our bus, people get on our bus. And it’s just this whole evolution that we go through. And parts of ourselves too we need to shed.

And for me, it was like what got me to there isn’t going to get me to here. And I knew that and I had to let go of that, but it was still sad. It was still like a part of me really truly had to die. And during that time of almost limbo, where the new part of me hadn’t come in yet, but the old part of me was gone, literally I was depressed. And my husband said to me, he was like, “I really feel like a part of you did die when that happened to you, and you just haven’t been fully reborn yet into the next phase.” And we kind of just got to sit with it. And he’s really good at just sitting with things. I don’t sit. I don’t do that. But that was helpful. And so, I sort of just sat, and the next thing came.

And it always comes. One of my other friends in business told me, she’s about 10 years ahead of me in business and money can be a trigger for a lot of people. And she’s like, if you’re running a business, at some point during the day, you’re either making money or paying someone else. There’s always this exchange happening. And just let it come in, let it go. Let it come in, let it go. You’re going to lose money and then in a month from now, it’s going to show up. And just the more unattached you can be to that process of taking how much you’re paying, how much you’re getting paid. And it’s really true and it can be really stressful and paralyzing in the moment.

But just for me, the thing that I constantly remember is that it’s temporary, whether it’s good or bad. So, when things are going really well, I’m savoring it, and when it goes really bad, honestly, through this last bout of anxiety and depression, I almost savored it towards the end when I knew I was coming out of it because it was like being present to this wave that I’m writing. When you’re in it, I mean, your misery. But when you’re seeing it come out the other side, whether it’s just business or personal experience, I’m always like, oh no, there it goes.

Eric: Yeah. This is like one of the thing that effs us up, especially in the Western culture is, because we’re in it regardless. We’re in making money or we’re in not making money. We’re in what we consider ecstatic or we’re in depression. But we say that one is good and one is bad. From a spiritual perspective, they’re both equivalent because you’re in an experience. And part of the practice is okay, how much can I be a witness of what’s going on. Do without doing kind of the Buddhist approach. Be in the world but not of it, these kinds of things.

And so, it’s just a disservice that, and I don’t know where it came from, but this idea of like, oh, depression is bad, loneliness is bad. Do everything possible to avoid it. But really, it’s like, if you look at nature, that’s evident in the whole process of nature. There’s always the sun rises, the sun sets. If the sun was ever present, it would be not fun. And vice versa. And so, it’s like these cycles nurture each other. Like the Yin and the Yang symbol, one gets born out of the other setting.

Krista: Yeah. Easier said than done I think for sure. But for me, the best decisions I’ve ever made, the most transformational always came out of the heartbreak. And my husband says all the time, he’s like, no one ever found themselves on a beach. So, he likes to take me on these miserable treks. He’s very wise and whatever and evolved, lalala. But he likes to go on these miserable hikes like in New Zealand or wherever, and it’s just like miserable. And I would rather be at the beach and he’s like, you don’t find yourself at the beach. You got to really push past that comfort. And it’s true, I come out of these treks flying Mm hmm. So, I do agree, it’s just hard in the moment.

One of my friend’s gurus says, it’s a joke, but he said the meaning of life is struggle. And I think about that a lot. And when I’m having an experience, whether it’s good or bad, recently I got hurt physically. And there’s no better reminder that you’re alive than feeling pain, like just excruciating pain, and excruciating joy or the opposite, not excruciating, but pure bliss. But being in so much pain, throbbing, bleeding, that physical pain, it makes you so present. It’s like, well, I’m fully alive. I can feel all of this.

And so, I think that it’s hard in business, it’s hard just in general to ride the waves. The more we can learn to recognize the Lila, the story. So, for me, I can sort of hear Maharaji laughing at me a lot when I get myself into one of these repetitive stories that we tend to find ourselves in, specifically around business I have a reoccurring story that I get myself into. And it’s dramatic and it’s stressful and I’m upset and it’s like, how many times do I have to go through this to learn the Lila, to learn the message here. So, yeah, I think it’s a practice. It’s a daily practice, it’s a day remembering. And every single day, it’s like you start fresh.

Eric: Truly, literally starting over. Like, for example, on a physical level, I know by the end of the day based on what’s happened and practices and other things, I’m pretty good with my body by the end of the day, given a certain situation, but no matter what, when I wake up in the morning, I got to do it all over again. Got to reenergize, got to reorient and re-get into the thing. So, speaking about this topic, it’d be interesting to hear, do you have specific self-care routines and rituals that you do on a on a daily basis that you find helpful?

Krista: I do. The most helpful for me, swimming and riding my bike. It takes me a really long time, I used to be embarrassed to say it but it’s just the way my mind works to be quiet. It takes me a long time to get there. And so, I’ll get there though, but it takes a really long time. And swimming is one of those things like this morning, I do my mantra with every stroke. At first time like yelling it, just to get the everything else quiet, almost angry mantra swimming. I’m working stuff out. I did. I got really clear on a lot of stuff, I worked it all out.

And then by about 30 minutes into the swim, it’s quiet and it’s like a quiet peaceful, and I’m not even really forcing the mantra anymore. It’s just happening as I swim with every stroke. So, swimming really helps me multiple times a day. I just like lovingly, even after this call, I’ll lovingly cut the energy until I see you again later this week and try and take it with me less because we just carry so much that isn’t ours. And so that daily practice of just cutting the cords, bringing the power, the energy, the light back in, because so much of the energy we give goes to people we love, we respect, we care about. It’s not a bad thing, I give my energy away like it’s candy, but then you got to bring it back. So, bringing it back in is a really big practice for me. I’m not spreading myself too thin energetically or depleting myself.

And then I do my prayers. So, for me, it’s about cleaning, lighting incense, lighting all my candles. Sort of waking up the energy and the good vibes. I love my plants. And this is all really new for me. I’ve had a spiritual practice for a long time, I’ve had my shrine, I’ve had my mantra, I’ve had my little rituals. It wasn’t until I hit burnout in May that it became like these non-negotiables, which before my daily practice was maybe maximum an hour a day total, whereas now it’s like four throughout the day. So, it’s definitely increased. For me every day, a success is like how little I can do.

Eric: Can you talk a little bit more about the cord cutting, the energy, kind of retrieving it because I definitely experience this on a daily basis, big or small. More challenging ones for me and I think in a business sense, people can all relate to this. You get an email that really triggers you, business or whatever. And it’s like, you feel your energy just going into, being sapped by that thing. You will walk away from it but it’s still like, wherever you go, it’s with you. And so that’s definitely an experience I think people can get in with. So, how do you work with that?

Krista: I have an email I’m thinking about right now. Perfect example. It’s so real. I think that our minds just, I wake up in the night thinking about it. I’m so attached my clients to my business. So, that specifically, you know, one of the cords I cut every day is with my business. She has a big energy and I like to cut that cord a lot. You also have to do it multiple times throughout the day. But the big one I do is, I read recently that boundaries don’t have to be this electric fence that shock people.

But it can be this warm sort of light that demands that you be treated sacredly, but that isn’t going to happen all the time, and you’re going to get the email and you’re going to get, somebody told me recently that she felt manipulated by me. And then a week later signed up for a call. And I’m like, this is so confusing because I thought that my message had turned you off. So, she stayed with me for a while until I finally was like, I don’t feel like my message resonates with you, I’m confused why you want to pay me. And I had to cut that cord.

So, for me, it’s this loving way of whatever meditation happy place you have. I close my eyes and there everybody is. There’s our conversation, there’s what’s going on in my head, there’s my parents, there’s my sister, there’s everybody, that’s just filling my mind, my subconscious, my conscious. And they show up. And I call them all in. I’m like who’s ever in there, let’s go, welcome. So, it gets really loud.

And then for me, I just lovingly, they step out of my space. They step out of the circle and every time they do that light that was horizontal becomes more and more vertical. And it’s loving. So, it’s like, even people I’m having situations with or experiences with, and there is not a whole lot of love present. In my cord cutting, it’s all love. They’re saying thank you, I’m sorry, they leave, they leave, they leave. Everybody says something different whether it’s a business or a conversation, and I really have to cut it. And for me, they step out. Other people use scissors. Whatever works for you.

And for me, I’m on the beach, and then they actually swim away and then I open my eyes and the beach is empty. And so, I have to do that a lot. It takes practice, but I’ve been doing it now I would say every day for like three months. It even takes me a while to get into that space. I’m still trying to work through stuff. And I sort of let that be and I’m more patient with myself, and I’m like, okay, I think we’re ready now. Anything else? Okay, let’s cut it. And it’s so beautiful, and the last cord I always cut is my business, and that’s just like, boom. And then my light is fully back and she just says, you’ve done enough, we’ll see you tomorrow. And then it starts all over again the next day. And that’s the story and that’s the Lila.

But for me, taking on all that energy, anytime I see an energy worker or a healer or even acupuncture or even chiropractic, they’re like you’re caring a lot. I’m like, no shit. When you’re a sensitive person and you give yourself to a lot of people, you just have to find ways to fill your light back up. So, once everybody’s gone from my space, then all my teachers appear. And only when everybody’s gone can they appear. And they’re either raking me or I have a bald teacher who’s singing and chanting and it’s just all going back to me. And I used to feel really selfish about that. I would be like, oh, I’m so sorry, I have to cut your cord. And now it’s like the most loving thing I can do.

Eric: Listening to you talk about that, I think a lot about energy in my daily life. And one thing that resonates with me is thinking of subtle energy as being a seed and then it kind of grows more and more into forms like thought, feeling, external actions. It’s just more and more gross levels of expression of that same energy. And I think that the practice that you’re talking about where you’re basically paying attention to subtle energy, you’re becoming aware when thought form or some other subtle form, like these people or entities like a business come into your field and are interacting with you or you’re interacting, they’re melding together. That takes time, to get to the level where you can actually perceive that. You can see those things at that level.

Where can people start, if they don’t have like a meditative practice or developed a relationship with their thought form and seeing things as they come in?

Krista: Yeah. Awareness is such a big one. I think that’s a really good question. For me, I try and at least start to acknowledge. I’m pissed right now about something, for example. I am. I’m usually pissy about something. But there’s something that I’m pretty pissed about right now. And I’m trying to sit with where is this coming from. And for the last few days, I haven’t really been able to, so I’ve cut it and I’ve cut it and I’ve cut it, but it’s still there and I’m pissed and I’m trying to figure out where it’s coming from. And it’s absolutely my ego because we don’t really feel anger from our soul.

So, that’s sort of the first thing is like, is this coming from my heart or from my mind? And this is definitely from my mind. But why I’m feeling upset and I can, so it’s kind of getting to the little root of why this is bothering you or why this is taking up so much space. And for me it’s I feel betrayed because somebody that I trusted didn’t tell me the truth, and truth is so big for me. So, it’s now become this bigger thing. And then we make things so, so, so big.

So, I try to act less or not as quickly. I’m a huge, like I’m very reactionary, and I think a lot of us are so like something happens, I react. And luckily, I surround myself with really amazing people who have said like, take the weekend. Please don’t say anything, don’t respond with your emotions, because I do. I’m also into astrology and I’m very emotional, and communicative. So, communicating emotions, it’s a thing. And in business, especially, just really understanding and recognizing why I’m feeling the way I’m feeling, what I could have done, if anything, to contribute to this situation before I then talk about how it hurt me.

Now there’s other things I can say to this person that would be hurtful and not helpful. And so, that’s something that I also am trying because I want to say some stuff, like I’m mad, I’m righteous, you broke my trust, that’s my thing, truth and authenticity. So, I want to go at it. But that’s not really going to serve a bigger purpose in the long run for me or for this person. So, initially, the first thing that I just think about before I even think about energy is just where is this coming from? Why am I reacting this way? If I’m responsible for my reactions, which I am, I’m responsible for how I’m feeling. And how can I take any sort of responsibility for this? It is so hard. I don’t want to take any responsibility right now. I’m still in the angry righteous, pissed off phase.

But the longer I sit with it, the more it becomes clear. It’s been about a week. My morning swim this morning, it became really clear. I’m still mad though. So, I think also, the best advice I ever got around this is just be where you’re at and don’t try and be compassionate if you’re not feeling compassionate. But just be aware. When I hit burnout, I was having a full-on pity party. I didn’t want to come out of it. And anybody that was trying to pull me out of it, it’s like, if you don’t want to have a pity party with me, then I’m not interested. But I was aware that I was having a pity party. So, just being aware of where you’re at in that moment. Am I coming from gratitude? Am I coming from anger? Am I sad? Am I happy? Am I pissed? It’s fine.

But just starting to recognize where you are and how that makes you feel energetically or in your body or whatever, because for me, when something feels bad in my body, that’s a pretty clear indicator. When I feel nauseous or in my gut, those twisted up feelings, it’s like something’s off here. And then you can get deeper into noticing it immediately. I had somebody in my space the other day fixing my dishwasher. And his energy was just off. And my husband was like, you’re so mean, he did a great thing, he fixed our dishwasher. I’m like, oh, no, I have full compassion for him but I need to get him out of here. I felt his energy the minute he came in.

And so, I think when you become more sensitive, just awareness, like what am I feeling right now, and can I just be here? Knowing that like, I am having a pity party, I’m being pretty righteous. Even if it’s not like the most, I don’t know, we’re flawed, and just being okay with like the fact that you’re like maybe not your best self right now, but just be there.

Eric: The more you open your doors, the more that things can come. So, the more you expand yourself to be in service, the more you will be asked to be of service to different challenging situations is it ultimately helps you evolve. In hearing you talk about all that, thank you for sharing that by the way, I really appreciate it. It brings up this thing that you were talking about earlier, this word and concept that you work a lot with which is resistance. It ties together too where you’re talking about how there’s the highs and the lows, you’re making the money and the money’s going out, you’re static and you’re depressed, and you’re happy, you’re angry. And you’re having a pity party or not. If you resist what is happening, where does that end up? That ends up in bad places, right?

Krista: Yeah. I mean, definitely. Resistance is a funny thing. It comes in so many different forms of, for example, sitting down and not being able to compose music that morning like that can be resistance, or comparing yourself to what somebody else is doing and trying to do that instead of focusing on what your true calling or purpose or idea is. That’s resistance. When somebody tells me they’re still working on their website and getting their logo redesigned for the 25th time, that’s resistance.

So, I think recognizing that there is this resistance that’s going to come up, and be okay that it’s there. It’s the same thing that I was just talking about. It’s just being aware to where you are. And for me, I just launched this course, Marketing Fundamentals. It took me a year to launch. The only reason why was because of resistance. And I knew that I was experiencing resistance. It was vulnerable, it’s easy to hide. I launch everyone else’s projects for a living. But to launch my own, that was scary, that was vulnerable. And my whole thing is truth and authenticity, and I still felt resistance around it. I was fully honoring the reason why this isn’t launched is because of resistance. And I’m not ready yet. And when I’m ready to sit down and have coffee with resistance and face it, the course will come.

The course came, we launched, we failed, it was great. But timing is important too. So, I think timings a big thing too when it comes to resistance and just being where you’re at, and just recognizing that right now might not be going exactly how you want. What you do have control over in that situation and what you don’t have control over might actually be a gift.

Eric: Yeah. And while you were talking about that, especially when you were personifying resistance and having coffee with it, made me think of something that Ram Dass said about, even with all the years, all of these stains on his character, they’re still a part of him. It’s not like they go away. It’s just that you develop a relationship with them. You say hi when they enter and like you were talking about with your cord cutting ceremonies, you have conversations. You lovingly acknowledge them. But also, you kind of have this elder holding, you’re like the elder, you don’t allow them to run the show basically.

Krista: Yeah, exactly. I love Ram Dass. The other thing that he said and I’m totally going to butcher it, but he said it on one of his be here now or Here and Now podcast episodes, and it was a lecture from the 70s, but he was talking about, and I really related this to resistance and also just being where you’re at, and he was talking about meat. And he was saying, if every time you close your eyes and meditate, it’s the same thing about quitting drinking. Have you really quit drinking if all you do is think about is drinking? And he was talking about eating meat. And he said, if you sit down, close your eyes and all you can think about is that steak dinner, he said, and you don’t face it and just deal with where you’re at and acknowledge that it’s okay and that you’re thinking about the steak dinner, fast forward 20, 30 lifetimes from now and you’re just about to go into the beyond, the beyond he calls, into the shimmering Himalayas, and there will be that steak dinner bringing you back.

And so, for me, that really stuck with me as a really good reminder just to like be where you’re at and don’t try so hard to be somebody else because who you are is actually really amazing. And if you can really be who you are with all of you and create from that place and from that space, it actually creates more abundance, and it actually creates more flow because it’s all energy, and money is energy too. So, when you’re creating from that space, when you’re in that place, and can acknowledge that and just sit with that and all that, it’s so hard. For me, everyone’s like, why are you here? Why are you here? Every time I go to a spiritual thing, even a business event, everybody goes around the room and says, I’m Krista and this is why I’m here. People are like, I’m here to learn how to meditate or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And everybody has these answers. And for me, it’s just I’m here to remember, because just as quickly as you can forget, you can remember.

So, I think that we have to have these daily practices within ourselves, within our business that just remind us. So, for me, it’s the prayers, the shrine, it’s the cord cutting, it’s the incense. I’m at a stage in my spiritual journey that it’s external still, I have attachments. My necklace that I wear, my malas, the Japa that I do. Seeing my shrine, putting flowers there every day. I have these external experiences. And hopefully, one day it will all be inside me, but I’m so okay that that’s where I’m at. And I’m also attached to these things. If something happened to my shrine or my necklace or my beads, I would be super sad. And that’s just where I’m at in my practice because all of those things help me to remember.

Eric: I think a way to kind of tie all of this up together because we’re talking a lot about energy movement and the importance of moving energy, like moving between fluctuations of energy. One thing that helps me kind of crystallize this in a more tangible sense, is thinking about, imagine if you never took the garbage out. And basically, you’re constantly putting things in the garbage but you never take the garbage out. Or forest fires, if you’re constantly, debris keeps building up. Ultimately, one day there’s going to be huge thing.

So, I think at all the different levels, having practices is about keeping the house clean. The level that we’re talking about, maybe not everybody’s familiar with managing your thoughts, managing your emotions and connections. But it’s super important because if you do not manage it, ultimately, that leads to all sorts of mental problems. Like it will express itself in all sorts of challenges. That’s very prevalent in our entrepreneurial world. Do you find?

Krista: Oh yeah. And I also think for me, mental health plays a really big role in my journey. I suffer from anxiety and depression, I have for a long time. So, when you start doing the work, whether it’s getting on antidepressants or finding tools or seeing a psychologist or whatever, you start to really become aware. And I think that’s where a lot of that awareness comes from for me is because I’ve had to work on the mental health of how to not let my thoughts carry away, how to not have a panic attack on a plane, just all those things.

But with the business world and with the entrepreneur world, I also think it can be lonely and we get really caught up in our worth and our value being tied to, going back to what you talked about with your identity or the role that we’re playing, our value and our worth is so closely tied to the business, the success, the finances, the whatever number of followers, you name it, that we actually associate. And I do this every day, my worth and my value with how happy a client is or if somebody says yes to a proposal, where I’m charging them X amount, and they say, yes, I’m like, oh, they see my value. I did that so long unconsciously. And I still half the time I’m unconsciously doing it, where somebody big, like a huge dream client or podcast guest sees me. And I associate me being more valuable or more worthy because this person thinks I am.

I think when we’re in business in the role of the entrepreneur, the external validation or opinions really matter in a big way. And so, trying to find some healing or balance in that with letting that control us or the thoughts or the typical, you get 100 great comments, one negative one, and that’s the one you really get to you. We’re only human. And I think being an entrepreneurs, and one on the spiritual path, just sort of amplifies being human in every way.

Eric: Emails, comments, all this stuff, they’re not just what they are on the surface. There’s energy packed in that stuff. Like when people write things. Even in person, if I say something, it may not be congruent with my body language. When I type something in an email, you can tell if somebody was like not authentic about it. And really the energy they’re delivering is something more like … And people are, we’re all wizards throwing energy around, but we’re just not aware that we’re doing it, especially since it’s so easy given the state of just the digital world. It’s just kind of a little bit of a mess.

Krista: Yeah. The thing that contributed to me burnout was that. It was somebody with very strong energy threw it at me. And I could tell you in the moment when I was having the experience that it wasn’t mine. I knew it didn’t belong to me but it didn’t make it hurt any, it still hurt just as much. Even though I was aware that it wasn’t mine to own, that I was just sort of caught up in somebody else’s story and I was the recipient of this, really I could shake off, none of it belonged to me, man, it still broke my heart. So, I think that even when we are aware of our own energy and other people’s energy and how it affects us, it doesn’t make it any easier.

Eric: A knife is still a knife when it stabs you.

Krista: Exactly. Exactly.

Eric: If it’s by accident or on purpose or whatever.

Krista: Exactly. Yeah.

Eric: So, is there anything that we kind of haven’t talked about that is kind of coming to you at this time that would be meaningful to share?

Krista: Going back to my work and what I’m doing right now, I think a huge piece of marketing in general gets a bad rap and sales gets a bad rap. And I just think nothing is good or bad, it’s the intention we bring to it. And if you’re an entrepreneur or considering selling something, launching something, creating something, I think that the resistance to do that is around the sort of imposter syndrome or I’m not a value or I can’t do this. And the last thing that I sort of want to leave people with is you can. And that’s why I’m here. And if artists, creators, healers, business owners knew how to market and create a marketing strategy and fully see themselves, I would be out of work.

So, I think that just being okay with understanding that maybe marketing isn’t your strong suit but knowing that in order to sell, launch, build, put out there, whatever it is, you have a business responsibility. So, I think when we decide, and this is the last thing I’ll say, to take our passion or our dharma or our purpose and turn it into a business, we have business responsibilities that go along with that. And that means making money, because if you aren’t making money, then you don’t have a business, and to make money you have to sell.

So, a big piece of what I do is help people heal their relationship around selling, around sharing, around talking about whatever it is that they’re doing because if you’re not excited about it, no one else will be. So, yeah, that’s sort of the last thing on my mind is when you have something to share, share it, post it, yell it, shout it, sell it. Yeah. There’s just so many ways you can do that authentically and honestly.

Eric: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for that wrap up.

Krista: Thank you.

Eric: Where can people find out more about you?

Krista: I’m just Krista Ripma on Instagram. And I post a lot, I share a lot. I have a website, it’s authenticaudience.co, C-O. And you can find my podcast. I have tons of free information value there. And I have some courses that I’ve got going. I have a marketing fundamentals course, and I do one on one strategy calls where I build you a custom strategy. So, that’s it.

Eric: Awesome. Well again, and thank you so much for your time and sharing and being on. And yeah, I look forward to talking to you again soon.

Krista: Yeah, me too. Thank you.

OUTRO:

Thank you so much for listening to my entire conversation with Krista.

I hope you enjoyed this episode and benefited from the topics we explored today.

I’d like to extend my sincere gratitude to Krista for coming on the show and getting real about her own struggles as an entrepreneur.

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