Creating a Sacred and Successful Business with Stephen Dinan
Having a vision of where your business needs to go is important, but might not get you anywhere if you don’t also have good business strategies. CEO of The Shift Network, Stephen Dinan, shares his wisdom on building a sacred business.
The Shift Network was founded in 2010 and has served over 700,000 people worldwide, with customers in 150 countries. It delivers virtual summits, courses, and trainings featuring over 50 core faculty and 1,000 thought leaders in domains as diverse as spirituality, peace, holistic health, psychology, parenting, enlightened business, shamanism, indigenous wisdom, and sustainability.
Stephen Dinan is the CEO of the Shift Network, and is a graduate of Stanford University (Human Biology) and the California Institute of Integral Studies (East-West Psychology).
It was while exploring transformational practices, during a meditation retreat, that Stephen received a vision about his future in the transformation industry. He realized he needed to help develop a global network with the aim of unifying civilization under a peaceful, sustainable lifestyle.
This led Stephen to develop the Shift Network, designed to help bring more people in touch with transformative practices.
When it comes to spiritual entrepreneurship, Stephen has encountered lots of criticism for being a profit-driven business. Yes he believes that spirituality and money need not be in conflict. Stephen states that since the economy is gradually becoming more interested in transformational practices, fostering that sector and growing its monetary value can help to deliver more conscious evolution back into mainstream society.
While it’s important to work from your vision when constructing your sacred business, as Stephen did, it’s also important to work with a bottom-up strategy. Seeing where the market is going, and noticing trends in the data, is important for making your vision align with reality.
One good strategy for building your business is to develop courses and programs at the same time as growing your audience. You can then use your small following to “test out” your early products, and see which ones get popular and which don’t.
Turning your audience into a full-blown social movement is an aspiration for many sacred business owners. Stephen recommends tying in real-world actions to your products, so that people leave your courses with a clear collective aim to make the world a better place.
In this interview, you will discover:
- What it takes to create a global network of lightworkers and changemakers
- How to turn an audience into a movement
- The secret to testing a potentially lucrative niche, especially spiritual & activist niches that few people expect are even monetizable
- His number #1 hiring advice for visionary agents of change who wish to ignite a movement
About Stephen Dinan
Stephen is a graduate of Stanford University (Human Biology) and the California Institute of Integral Studies (East-West Psychology). He helped create and directed the Esalen Institute’s Center for Theory & Research, a think tank for leading scholars, researchers, and teachers to explore human potential frontiers.
As the former director of membership and marketing at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, he was the driving force behind the Shift in Action program and the One Minute Shift media series. He is the author of Sacred America, Sacred World and Radical Spirit (New World Library). He has been a featured speaker at the World Cultural Forum in China, the Alliance for a New Humanity in Costa Rica, Renovemos Mexico in Mexico City, and the University of Cuenca in Ecuador, as well as many US conferences, events, radio programs, and online summits. Stephen lives in San Rafael, California, with his beloved wife Devaa.
Where to Find Stephen Dinan
https://www.stephendinan.com/
https://theshiftnetwork.com/
