How could a simple wrist watch hold a message from the universe? Entrepreneur Jesse van der Velde shares how such a wrist watch, in tandem with the power of sacred plant medicines, awakened his eyes to the voice of his soul. Join Jesse on The Spiritual Game of Business Podcast and watch the world within yourself, your life, and your business:

• Who am I if my business stops growing?
• Who am I if I am not making more money?
• Am I truly living, or just staying alive?

Click here to listen to the episode on Spotify.

Time

If you’re listening to this podcast or reading this article: Welcome. It’s no coincidence that you are here – something inside of you has been growing – a kind of guidance, or intuition. Something that has been growing louder over the past few weeks, months, maybe even years. Something that has been asking you to look deeper within.

This guidance, or intuition, is the voice of your soul. I overruled my own inner voice for years of my life in my relentless pursuit of success. It wasn’t until a few years ago when I finally heard the voice of the soul thanks to the curious malfunction of my watch in tandem with my first sacred plant medicine ceremony. From that point on, I realized it was time for Part 2 of my life to begin.

Material Success

For most of my adult life, I have been absorbed in building my businesses, making money, and wanting to be successful in my industry. These goals were my driving force and I never questioned it. 

Back then, two of my goals in life were to own a Porsche and a Swiss Breitling watch. I laugh when I think back to those times – there’s nothing wrong with having a big car or a nice watch, but I later realized that achieving such luxuries will never fulfill what we are truly searching for.

But alas – there was a time when having the Porsche and the Breitling were pinnacles of success. After a great deal of hard work – I did earn both of those luxuries. One day, while driving in the Porsche and wearing the Breitling, I looked down to notice that the watch wasn’t working. It had simply stopped. 

Equally puzzled and annoyed, I called a friend of mine who works at the Breitling store in London. They offered to have it repaired in Switzerland if I mail it to their London store.

I was not urgently pulled to go to the trouble, so I simply put it in my closet and forgot about it.

An Awakening

Shortly after my watch broke, my friend took me to the woods for a weekend away. I knew he would introduce me to a plant medicine shaman, but I didn’t know just how important this weekend would be, and that this shaman would later become my mentor.

That weekend, the shaman guided us through a special plant medicine ceremony using sacred mushrooms. It was this moment when my ideas of success, identity, and life itself were completely turned upside down.

In that ceremony, I suddenly thought of my broken watch and immediately understood why my watch had stopped – it was trying to tell me a message: 

“It’s a new time. The time is now – welcome to Part 2 of your life.”

In this moment, the voice of my soul spoke and guided me, asking such questions as:

• Are you truly living your life? Or are you merely staying alive?
• This is your life: what are you going to do with it?
• This life is a journey; where are you taking this journey?

My shaman mentor looked into my eyes and said, “What is your truth?” I didn’t know the answer, but I knew that I wanted to explore that question. I looked to my friend and said, “Now I understand why my watch has stopped.”

There Are No Coincidences in Life

After the ceremony, I decided to revisit my broken watch. I found it in the closet and tried once again to see if it could work. Unsurprisingly, it still wasn’t working. I investigated it – twisting and turning everything I could to try to get it to work.

Nothing.

I even tried the Uri Geller thing – when that spoon-bender guy from T.V. magically repairs watches with his mind alone.

Nothing.

Admitting defeat, I decided to ship the watch to my friend at the Breitling store in London. After the watch arrived, my friend called, sounding absolutely confused.

“Jesse, what’s wrong with your watch? It’s working perfectly fine. I even attached it to the chronometer machine in our store and it’s all balanced; it’s perfectly fine.”

I got chills at that moment – the epiphany I had in the plant medicine ceremony was fully manifesting. My watch “breaking” was in no way a coincidence; the message was loud and clear: “This is a new time in your life. A new journey is about to begin.”

Now was the time to let go of the old paradigms of how I spend my time: trying to be productive and make every minute count; trying to set goals and be super productive; driven by the go-go-go mentality. 

All of these things we learn about productivity and time management – they got me to a certain degree of material success. But I realized that this old paradigm wasn’t serving me anymore. My watch “broke” long enough for me to see that it was time to begin this new journey. 

Striving in Business

Building a business is a journey in and of itself – an entrepreneur starts with a dream and then takes action on that dream, investing all of their time and energy into that business. If they’re fortunate, the business grows, as does the entrepreneur. 

After putting in all the hard work to build a business, there comes a point when the entrepreneur begins to look within, embarking on a kind of “second” journey. This journey doesn’t take place in our external world, but instead deep within, on our own inner path.

The Spiritual Game of Business Podcast is an invitation for you to embrace this inner journey and how it is connected to your own business.

• Where are you in life? 
• Have you accomplished your dreams and goals? 
• If you exited your business or reached many of the goals you were looking to achieve – what’s next? Is it just more of the same? 

Entrepreneurship can leave one in a constant state of striving – striving for the next achievement on the path to success. But where does it end? Is it possible that you are trying to find a new result by doing more of the same? 

When this happens, it’s a reflection of where we are on the inner journey of becoming. Our business is a reflection of what lives inside of us. Oftentimes, what lives inside of us is actually something that is searching – searching for something to experience that we have yet to find within.

Change Your Business

When reaching that point of clarity – that we are striving for something we’ll never attain externally, we can find ways to approach our business in a way that is more aligned with our inner journey. One such example is to either set up a new charity or even to organize a portion of a business’ proceeds to support a chosen charity. 

While there are many ways to manifest our inner journey in the businesses we operate in the outer journey, don’t forget to revisit intention: Is your desire to start a charity rooted in something pure, or is it part of your desire to achieve more as an entrepreneur?

Ultimately, we have a choice to take action, which is a familiar option to entrepreneurs, or to stop and sit with what is inside. If we keep taking action as a reaction, we aren’t really giving ourselves the choice of something more – something deeper.

It’s Time

This podcast is an invitation to look within, to ask yourself, “What is it that I’m truly looking for?” To reflect and evaluate what is motivating you and your business aspirations. 

It was so hard for me to let go of my identity as a businessman because so much of my identity was dependent on being successful. “Who am I if my business doesn’t grow anymore? Who am I if I am not making more money? Who am I if my business isn’t growing as fast as it used to?” 

I felt an emptiness when I relinquished my identity as a successful businessman, yet that emptiness was exactly why I decided to embark on this journey. 

The only thing we can truly do in life is to follow our inner guidance – to follow the path that is presented rather than forcing our own. 

What intuition is inside of you? Perhaps it’s been gaining momentum lately, yet it can be so hard to hear. 

When you find the stillness and look within, what is it that the voice of your soul is revealing to you? It’s time to listen.