Dear Reader: About this Project

Issue 100

Jul 24, 2022

Dear Reader,

Allow me to introduce myself. I am a social entrepreneur, which means I endeavor to change the world via business. Do good, make money. This became my path after years of checking my soul at the door of my office in midtown Manhattan every day, toiling with fellow corporate hacks, strategizing as world-class advertisers about how to sell more crap to more people for corporate profit, gorging on high-end client lunches and dinners (rewards for collecting peanuts for pay at the bottom of a massive pyramid), reading the writing on the wall every one of those days that I would only ever be able to exist in this world for so long, utterly determined, nonetheless, to be in it to win it for as long as that would be. Indeed, I set an intention back then (circa 1982) — long before I knew what that meant — to one day find work that had purpose, meaning, and value because this wasn’t that. One decade later, the aha that presented itself — what I would later come to call inspiration — was psychotherapy. So I quit being a corporate cog, downsized my life, enrolled in graduate school, and set out to establish my Self as a private practice therapist. Woot woot.

Simultaneous to my psych studies I learned about being a spiritual being having a human experience — a paradigm shift. I also learned about, took to heart, and put into immediate practice the 15 concepts which, once applied, created profound and rapid positive change in my life, a life I had been eager to make happier, more meaningful, and far more purposeful. I fell in love with this practice for its efficacy and for the efficiency with which it helps humans solve human problems — for good. All of which resulted in an updated intention to make what I love and what I do be the same thing. Giving up my license to practice psychotherapy and all the supposed credibility that went with it in favor of a mere idea called “Spiritual Workout” was an action inspired by that intention.

Events conspired to give me the room and space to fully gestate the idea. I tested it out over a few years with different kinds of people working through all the regular issues in many different formats. Then it was ready for prime time and, best of all, I was ready to fully fund its launch into the world (circa 2009) with a ton of home equity I’d amassed until what now? Global financial excuse me? Great Recession? No more equity? None? For real? No more house? Or money? Or community? Not cool.

“The Conscious Politics Sunday Newsletter! Go!” I listened to that inspiration because it’s what I do. I was not connected to anyone in the political or publishing worlds, I was (and am) virtually non-existent on social media, and I had a minuscule email list full mostly of people not all that interested in my work but hey…irrelevant.

It was crazy to be launching it all from the bottom of a deep, dark ditch of financial ruin, emotional upheaval, homelessness, and pennilessness instead of from that cushy, self-financed perch I had planned, but I knew it was doable. I had all the tools, after all, to navigate my way through anything, the exact same tools I had packaged to purvey as Spiritual Workout, a premium social impact business. Having a home again would come when it would. Being financially comfortable again would come when it would. There was just no way I was going to give it all up before it started. No way at all.

For several years I experienced nothing but fits and starts, soaring highs and crushing lows. I was spending, at best, ten percent of my time doing my actual work and most of my time navigating the soul-sucking minutiae required for everyday survival. Gathering forward momentum was elusive until it wasn’t. For the last four years, I’m happy to report I have spent more than 90% of my time doing my actual work. An in-depth beta test of Spiritual Workout ONLINE, a monthly subscription, proves that it consistently turns out repeat subscribers who credit Spiritual Workout with creating ongoing, profound, meaningful, change in their lives. The simple, social business proposition is to reach the masses by scaling it all the way up and it is poised for that investment.

Along the way a complementary social enterprise idea emerged, which I dubbed The Consciousness Company. It’s basically Spiritual Workout for large groups of people eager to problem-solve at scale like those in (but not limited to) politics and business: a new-consciousness version of a traditional consultancy and training company. Great idea! Right up my alley! I’m here for it! But it will have to come to fruition in a new-consciousness way, which means I’m doing diddly-squat until and unless I’m inspired to. Period.

A smattering of little and potentially-big projects without legs came and went and then, two years ago, thwack! “The Conscious Politics Sunday Newsletter! Go!” I listened to that inspiration because it’s what I do. I was not connected to anyone in the political or publishing worlds, I was (and am) virtually non-existent on social media, and I had a minuscule email list full mostly of people not all that interested in my work but hey…irrelevant. Besides, I love to write and was immediately fired up and ready to go.

So I have hijacked Issue 100 to offer you this perhaps-unknown context for the newsletter’s existence and to share information about the general plan for it beyond today. A survey of readers I commissioned earlier this year (in which you may have participated) produced extremely valuable, compelling feedback right when I needed it. Thank you. You told me the newsletter provokes new thought. You said it provides something in the realm of hope and optimism. (I had no idea!) You told me you learn from it and that you sense an urgency for it to be in the mainstream.

Thank you, Dear Reader

As stated on consciouspolitics.us, the intention of conscious politics is to infuse the mainstream with currents of conscious political thought so we’re in agreement there. Armed with those (and deeper) survey results about the impact of this work, I have begun knocking on doors in search of finding an established editorial home for it. The Conscious Politics Free Monthly Trainings have proven to be a unique place for citizens to work through their issues and concerns about politics American style, with plenty of room to grow. A campaign targeting our youngest citizens is in the works and all of it is unfolding via new-consciousness practice and without my having generated a single dollar of income or having (yet) landed in a home of my own.

I know nothing more about the trajectory of this newsletter or conscious politics writ large than I did about the trajectory of Spiritual Workout. What I do know is that 100 issues in, it’s my job to keep my head down and revel in the joy I feel every Thursday morning when I enter my “writing bubble” and face the blank screen on my laptop. I know I feel energized and excited at every stage of the three-day process I’ve created that culminates with publishing a piece on Sunday morning. I know that energy for the work is gathering, momentum is building.

So thank you, Dear Reader, for reading this newsletter, especially if you have been doing so for some time. Thank you for providing the space for it to live and grow. And thank you for celebrating this milestone with me, one I would normally have glossed over if not for the inspiration that compelled me to do this instead. We will return next week with our regular (20%-shorter-than-this) programming to change the world.

P E A C E ,

Steven