 Eric Klein is one of my favorite people in the world. And I'm so grateful that for his presence in my group coaching program, we learned from each other and Eric is developing a business, a spiritual community. So first of all, Eric, welcome to this. Thank you for doing this. Thank you for having me. Yeah. So we're gonna hear from you several times. Well, I'm gonna do this interview with you several times this year. And each time you'll get to share a bit of progress on how it's going with developing your spiritual teaching business and some insights that viewers and listeners might find encouraging, helpful as they also develop their own authentic business. So to start, let me allow you to introduce your business. You know, however, whatever you would like to say is great. Okay, well, I am a co-leader of the Wisdom Heart community with my wife, Davey. And Wisdom Heart is a contemporary expression of a very ancient lineage called the Kriya Yoga lineage. So those teachings go back thousands of years and we're, as is the tradition in our lineage, we constantly, it's constantly updating its expression to meet the needs of the current situation. So here I am, 2023 doing that. And basically we teach three things. We teach how to deepen your meditative communion with and by waking up to the divine presence through spiritual practice, we teach how to heal, to use that presence to heal karma and trauma that gets in the way of having a awakened life. And then once they, as the healing progresses to share your presence and your gifts with others to support their awakening, whether they're in your family or whether they're clients or in your community. Beautiful, yeah. And tell us a bit about what kind of, the offers basically, like how is it, how is this wisdom expressed in terms of the actual programs or offerings? Well, that's maybe one of the reflections in terms of progress that I can give because while we have about 30 or 40, maybe it's 40 different programs that have been, we've developed over the years, I haven't really organized them into like these three buckets until very recently. And that's one of the insights that came from doing the framework program. Okay, so it was a potpourri of, it was like a buffet, but the desserts were with the salads and the main dishes were over there and the rice was here. And it was sort of like, go to a buffet, you have to figure out how to eat your meal. We didn't have it organized in a way that allowed people to progress and feel a sense of safety and comfort and development, right? So that's the way to start with saying, first understanding there are these three frames that we teach, that was the first step. And now I've organized the programs under them. So this was another kind of progress. And now what we are in the process of doing is creating the foundation program, which is an introduction to these three disciplines and a light introduction to some of the key programs that go underneath them. I love it. So for someone who's watching who's like, yes, I too have a bunch of different ideas. I need to organize them into some kind of framework. Eric was mentioning the create your framework course. I'll put a link below. But do you wanna share anything about your process or any tips? Like how was it given the 40, how did you figure out these three? Good question. Okay, one thing I did was first, I overthought how to do it. So I would recommend getting that step out of the way as soon as possible. Okay. Because there is no perfect framework. Right, so that's the first thing. And it was sort of like, I noticed this, which I have a tendency to parse things and make distinctions and such. And it was like, I'm doing this and nobody cares about all those. I wanna make it so it's an invitation, simple enough to let people have a sense of being held. Okay, so I just set myself the goal of having these three things that anyone had to think about. I know you have eight or maybe they're growing into a hundred but nonetheless, I wanted to have three, okay? And then it was like, then it was also this thing, it's okay, take a big step back, like a really bigger step for you of what it is. And if you had to say there's three of them, three disciplines, what are they? What are you really doing? Yeah, yeah. And sure stuff overlaps and all that, but that's inevitable. There's no way to stop that. That's right. So that was the main thing, to take a big step back and go, I can remember these three, I can communicate about them and they do make sense with the offerings. So, and then not the second guess. I showed them to people in the community and showed them to people in our community, I showed them to people at Master at Heart ABC community. Mostly I got better feedback, I think, from the ABC people because they didn't know so much about what we do. Right. So it was more unbiased. To people who were on the, in the general spiritual orientation but not knowing this work. So it's like, oh yeah. Oh, that makes perfect sense. And yes. Or here, what about that little tweaks? You know, in terms of when they fed it back to me. That was a question. So what does that mean to you? And then they fed it back. And then I got. In other words, you got feedback from colleagues, you might say. Or sort of like, sort of spiritually, generally spiritually in tune people and because you teach spirituality. So it's like people who are in that arena but who aren't experts in your field, the experts in your field probably would have done more part-seeing and like distinctions. And well, what do you really mean by that word? You know, it's like, no, it's the general public or the typical student when they first begin isn't going to nitpick those issues. Yeah. And another thing I thought about these three. Well, that relates to what you're saying. I thought about them as invitations to the general audience. They're really not for the initiated, so to speak. They're for the people who want to come into and explore. Yes. And so I also wanted to be able to state them in ways that weren't too much insider baseball, you know? Yes. And I wanted to state them in ways that were aspirational. That's right. Yeah, aspirational. Tell us again, if you don't mind, those three. So there's a name for it, and then there's a operationalized tagline, so to speak. So it's deep in meditative communion. Ah, okay. That's the discipline. I also, by the way, this is something I learned from you. So I'm calling them disciplines because I'm hoping that's a filter to repel people who don't want discipline. This is not a magical cure. This is a practice. All of our framework, that's part of the job, is to do a good filtering job. Yeah. So three disciplines, and I have developed a talk sort of like, discipline is a horrible word, right? No, you know, it's like to explore that, right? Yeah. So deep in meditative communion, the operational expression is wake up to divine presence through daily spiritual practices. Heal, karma, and trauma. That's the second one. Yeah. That's the second one too. Heal reactive habits of body, speech, and mind with wisdom and love. Nice. And the third one is share your presence and gifts. It says witness and support others as they walk their awakening paths. Oh, nice. I like that it leads into essentially becoming a bit of a teacher for others in this path. Yeah, exactly. Because we're teaching others something, but maybe not awakening, you know? So as we heal, we get to be a more beneficent teacher, you know, or a more generous teacher of goodness, right? Yeah. Really good. So I hope those who are watching can get some insight from this and just everything you've shared is helpful for one creating our own framers. I mean, just even me thinking about my own, I'm like, you know what, Eric's right. My eight practices are actually, no, it's funny thing is I don't know if it was conscious or not, but my practice, well, I think mainly I needed to organize my own information. So I have my eight practices of authentic business and I'm like, I have to get clear on what the heck I am doing with all these different courses. Like how do they all fit? Okay, these eight practices make sense for me. But you're right that I haven't, it's funny because I haven't done as good of a job as you have in terms of now creating something that is for the public to consume. That's something like a three, but you're right, eight would be too many. I mean, yes, Buddha had the eight full path, but it's still most people who are Buddhist friendly don't even know what the eight full path is. Right? Could name it if you tested them, right? So, okay, so this is really good. You've got your three that are public consumable or at least it's friendly to your beginner students. People might be interested. And then now you're developing a foundations course. I think that's also progress. I want you to talk about the insights as you're developing it. How, what's going into that thinking process of developing it? Okay. I used to lead with a program called the meditation habit. Right. Okay, and that, it is a core competency or discipline under deep in your meditative community because if you don't have a habit, it's not gonna get very deep, right? But this is more of a, I guess this is more than framed in the level of business strategy. There's so much competitive material for free and for fee on the internet around habit and meditation and happy a meditator and all that. That it's good that there's lots of competition because that means people want it. And it also, lots of it is free and lots of it is very inexpensive and lots of it is not very intimate. It's app based or something like that. So how do I distinguish what we're doing? It's not really, it's not just learn how to meditate. It's a way of living an awakened life. And so these three disciplines, I think, if I'm answering your question, I don't remember anymore, are a way for me to step, to invite people to step back and consider their life and how meditation is one of the disciplines that helps them cultivate that life. So the foundation program has a little bit of how to, but it's also more of a why to. Yes. Yeah. And who to, like who do you wanna be and why do you wanna be that? And here's some hows, those are the programs. Right. Yep. Yeah. I like that you are approaching it from how is my framework unique, what's a unique contribution? Not that no one else in the world has said it this way, but it's what's a unique contribution compared to the mainstream that the typical beginner student probably has seen out there. Yeah. This is a little different. It's something you said the other day about promising your care and your connection. I don't know. In your structure. And promising your framework and your care. Yeah. I think that's a lot of what the message implicit in the foundation course is. Yes. Yes. It's to communicate the care and to make the connection and to. That's right. To frame things for people so that they have a sense there is a meaningful map. They can enter a journey they can go on. That's beautiful, yeah. And just to give the context, promising our framework, our curriculum and our care and our presence and that we do our best to live our values, really. And that the values are communicated within our work. Rather than promising, you know, hyped up results of, what would that be in meditation? Now join our meditation program and you will, I don't know, make six figures now. Conquer the world, you know. Conquer the world. Yeah, you will instantly be forever enlightened in. Yeah. So this is really good. And so the foundation program, you're bringing the structure, the why, clarifying that. And so how are you imagining you will launch this? I think this will be interesting for those watching. Again, everyone who's watching, like think about your own knowledge base and how you might create a framework from that. And therefore having some kind of foundation, of course, I do as well. Those of you watching may know about my biz plan course. That's my foundations course. And so it's like everyone should, if you have a lot of things teach, have a foundation. So how are you envisioning presenting this, sharing it with the world? Any thoughts on that? Yep. So, oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. I think, I guess a couple of ways. I'm not sure if it's three or more. I'll say it's three, but I can't remember. So one is through, first of all, the schedule. I'm considering, I'm thinking I'll do it three times a year. Yeah, there we go. Right. So quarterly just seems too much. And twice a year at this time just doesn't feel right. So we'll see. Three times a year. This will be a way of following the foundations program. There'll be a suggestion for a bit of a DIY program for them to do. Yes. Simple, short. Or the invitation to come into the community. Right now, the community has just always been open. Yes. And while that works for certain people, it can also feel like you're jumping on a moving train. Yeah. And there's no like. You're coming into a meeting where people are already. Yeah, they're already in the conversation and they already know each other. And there's insider like humor and sort of that whole sense of like, am I a stranger here, you know? So I think, I don't know if you use the word onboarding, but it's some kind of process for bringing people in and having some of the senior students be like buddies for that person who comes through the foundations program to help them join. So they either move to a DIY sort of thing and then hopefully the community or straight into the community. So that's three times a year. I'm planning to do social media intensives of my content and ads and stuff, you know, obviously surrounding all the gentle launch material around those, okay? Yes. And we're changing our, like when people come to the website initially right now there's a program they can take called Seven Days of Clarity, which I love, but it's different. It's like, it has a different flavor than what I'm moving into, which is much more transparently, it's much more transparent and much clearer and much more true in terms of what we do in the community. Right. Because I had many decades of working in corporations doing consulting. My Seven Days of Clarity is very vanilla. It's good. Sciencey speaks more to that language than to the awakening language. Right. Now, I'd like just to go back to the fact that you're doing it three times a year. It's really nice. I actually do my foundation course once a year. That's because I have so many other courses I'm doing. But when I was starting, I did teach it more often and I found it was really helpful to continue honing it, refining it. And by this point, my foundation course, I don't know, it's probably version 12 or 15 or something like that. And but the fact that, so you are teaching it live three times a year. Is that right? That's what I'm planning to do until we can have some videos that I'm happy with. That's right. And then I can have developed people to do more like facilitative conversations around the videos. That's right. That's right. And the future versions, you could still launch it three times a year, but it'll be like, here are the recorded video material and here's our live meetings. That's really nice. And then you said, once someone takes the foundation's course, they can follow up. If they wanna keep going, they have these two pathways. You could do the DIY, do it yourself as a home study course kind of thing, or they can join the community. And because you're doing this launch or this announcement or this inflow three times a year, there's more likely to be like a little cohort that are joining at the same time. Right. That would be the cohort. And I can time my community curriculum to also be sort of beginning a program. That's right. Following the foundation. So they're not coming in the middle of a conversation. They're coming at the beginning of a conversation. Really nice. This is why I'm hoping those who are watching, if you're also a teacher, kind of a curriculum creator of some kind, and if you're spiritually open, you might wanna follow Eric's work and kind of see how Eric's does the foundation's course. You might wanna check it out and experience it yourself and see how you can use that idea to create your own foundation's course and your own framework. So I'll put the links below. Any other, we only have a few minutes left, but any other key insight or encouragement, thinking about an earlier version of yourself and your business, what encouragement tip would you share with that person? Sure. Just put out stuff. Yeah, just put it out there. Like, just really. I have, I'm a double Virgo. I like to refine things, but what I learned when I wrote my first book was, I realized I'm rewriting this book three times. I'm now on the fourth rewrite. No, stop. Just write a new book. Put this one out instead of iterating on it. Just iterate in a new edition, a new publication, but it's same as true in video and just put it out. And I grew up in New York City and one thing I learned as a kid when you walk around, nobody's paying attention anyway. You can do anything in New York and nobody cares. The world is distracted. So it's okay to just put- It's even more true on social media. It's even worse. Put out things and you teach it this way. You're learning and you're doing self-development. You're clarifying your own thinking. And if you go, that didn't make sense. That's a victory. Now you can say it again. That's right. That's not- In the next video or the next- Yeah, it's like, yeah, publish more often, you know. Oh, I love it. Yeah, it really important. Okay, so the next time we get together, Eric, in a few months, what would you love to celebrate at that point? Is there some focus? Well, I guess the foundation scores right now. That would be my main commitment is to have the foundation's course, have done it at least once, depending on when we talk, have done it at least once, and to have the new offer, a free thing that people can get when they land on the website to be redone. Because that's basically a short talk about the three disciplines that suggests the foundation's course. To have that done and hopefully to have people responding well to it, I guess. What's the new thing gonna be called if you know it at all at this point? The working title is just the three disciplines of the awakened life. Okay, great. Okay, so then people who are watching this can look for it on your site when it's ready. And you'll announce it probably on your email list and your social media. So people can- Good, okay. So I look forward to hearing about that, how that went, and the insights learned from that next time. So thank you so much. Anything else you wanna say as we complete this? If you're taking George's program, which I assume you are if you're watching this, just take your time. That's all. There's a lot to digest. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's important. It's the metabolizing of it is the important part. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah, good. All right. Thank you so much, Eric. Thank you. Okay.