Soul Path Business Building: Struggle, Self-Trust, and Perseverance

What if the clearest business guidance comes from a question no one knows you’re asking? Krystal opens with a playful intuition exercise that sparks a bigger truth: building a sustainable, soul-aligned coaching practice demands more than certifications and vision boards. It requires choosing the right skills, pricing at your true belief, and staying in the game when everything in you wants to hide.

We walk through the wild highs and hollow lows of the coaching boom... new clients, long dry spells, debt consolidation, and the intense relief of stabilizing cash flow. The turning point arrives with a mentor who helps Krystal align her business to the work she’s uniquely built for: intuition and advanced energy healing. Once the skills clicked and the “creator field” was tuned, momentum followed, producing her strongest six months to date. 

Along the way, we challenge a sticky myth: alignment isn’t effortless. It’s reflective. Like a marriage that lasts decades, meaningful work asks for daily re-commitment and steady growth.

Money talk gets honest, too. We dismantle the idea that spirituality and wealth can’t coexist and reframe income as a measure of service and responsibility. Then we dig into pricing as a nervous system game. The fix to her income dips wasn’t a flashier script—it was self-trust, stair-stepped pricing, and real reps to build proof. Vulnerability, belonging, and the infamous cringe phase get their due, because if your path asks you to stand out, discomfort is part of the ticket.

If you’re craving practical intuition, grounded money wisdom, and the courage to lead yourself, this conversation is a good one. Subscribe, share this with a friend who’s building something brave, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway—we read every word and it helps more people find the show.

Transcript

Opening And Show Purpose

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Do you ever get the feeling that you're destined for an even bigger, bolder, more magical life? Welcome to the Conscious Glow Up. I'm your host, intuitive energy healer and coach Crystal Ward. My goal is to help you create the life you fantasize about by teaching you energetic spiritual laws of the universe and neuroscience tools. I'll share how I utilize these teachings in my own life with stories of single motherhood, entrepreneurship, finances, and relationships. Let's dive on into the depths of consciousness and glow up from the inside out. Hello and welcome back to the Conscious Glow Up. I'm going to start with a really cool intuition story on why I chose to do this particular episode today. So I have all these ideas for topics that I want to talk about on this podcast, but for some reason I was feeling blocked on choosing one for today. So I used a fun intuition tool that you guys can try in your own lives. Try it with family, friends, your partner, coworkers, or even someone random you find on the street, or like I did, my kid. The tool is having the other person answer your question without them knowing that you are even asking a question. It's like some Jedi Ninja intuition, or if nothing else, it's fun to try. On a basic level, ask, like if you want to get a yes or a no answer to a question, just go up to them and be like, yes or no. Another way to do this is to have a general topic or question in your mind that you want guidance on and ask them to tell you a short random story about absolutely anything. They could talk about a mountain goat eating cheesecake in the rain, and you'll be able to connect it to the question you had in your mind and don't tell them what you're doing, just have the question in your mind, ask them to tell a random story and see if you can use that as your answer. It's actually been pretty funny how accurate the information I've gotten from doing that has been. But what I did for this episode was ask my daughter, what should I talk about for my next podcast episode? And her response actually blew my mind. She said, Your clients. Ironically, I'd just had four new prospects today, which for me is a lot. I was like, what is going on astrologically? Like, this is crazy. And she actually didn't even know about them yet. But she is very intuitive as well, and we pick up on each other's thoughts all the time. So I thought it could be that. But then I realized the bigger picture message in her response, my clients, as in my coaching business. I was kind of like, wow, duh, this is episode three. Uh that sounds appropriate. So today I'm gonna share some valuable life lessons I learned as a self-made aka struggle bus entrepreneur at the boom of the coaching industry in 2020 when everyone became a coach during COVID. I actually started right before the pandemic in 2019. So it was pretty amazing to see and be part of the huge explosion of the industry. Also came with its own challenges, but it was a really just very intense time, at least being in the industry and just watching it grow all around me. I share about the amount of debt I got into from all of that, uh, getting into a debt consolidation program, some of the lessons I gained from that, and the miracle at the end of that story in my last podcast episode. So if you are interested in my rock bottom money tale, plus a financial tool that will do wonders for you energetically, then I definitely encourage you to check out that episode as well. It is the one right before this. So, to be honest with you, I didn't even really know what a coach was when I decided to become one. But I knew that after having my daughter, I didn't want to go back to working at a casino steakhouse because we were unionized, so the regular flexibility that came with a restaurant job was non-existent. Plus, the hours went well into the nighttime, and the environment there was horribly toxic. I didn't want to be carrying all that home with me every day on top of new motherhood. So I'd always loved helping people, and my friends and coworkers would ask me for advice all the time and call me their therapist. So I told my own therapist one day that I was applying to a George Mason University master's program to become a therapist. But she recommended that I look into coaching instead because of how obsessed with productivity and growth I'd become. And it's all history from there. She nailed it. I'm going into my seventh year of coaching right now. I'm still not at a point where I don't have to have another source of income. Like I said in the financial episode, 85% of life coaches quit in the first year or two. Nobody tells you that in certification, if you even get one, which I got multiple, um, because I kept feeling like whatever I already had wasn't enough, so I was like, okay, I'll just keep getting certified. But nobody tells you in certification or otherwise how hard it is to actually build a business. We're just all so blinded, or what it seemed like me and my peers were just so blinded by the possibility of it all that we, you know, kind of forgot that not everyone in the world builds a business in their lifetime because of how fucking hard it is. Plus, if you are on your soul path, you better be okay with some rocky beginnings because you will have a lot of lessons that your higher self needs you to learn in order to have lifelong sustained business success. And if you're not on your soul path, but your higher self wants you to get on it, then you better believe that he or she will probably not open up the massive success your soul is capable of if you are not honing the right skills to use in your business. So I spent five years spinning my wheels, hiring coach after coach, program after program, looking for advice from whoever felt aligned for me at the time because I wasn't making consistent money. I will go through small waves of prospects and clients, and then I would have months of nothing. But last May, when I found my mentor Alessandro, who happens to be decades into his intuitive mastery skill set, so I do trust him, he said that my flow of business wealth hasn't really opened up yet because I wasn't honing the skills that I'm supposed to use to help people. He said that I have tons of soul contracts to help people, but in very specific ways, which happen to be intuition and energy healing. Energy healing, everyone's always like, okay, so is that like Reiki? Kind of like Reiki. I got level one Reiki certified a few years ago, but the stuff I'm getting into is worlds, worlds more advanced and in-depth than Reiki. So the lesson I learned from all of that is multi-layered, and the first layer is that if things aren't working and you feel that you are spinning out, if you keep going and just taking new steps, you will finally get to the door that is supposed to help you. You just need to stop at nothing. And you especially need to ignore the people who tell you to go the safe route because they have never gone the route you are taking. It is a priggly path we're on, starting businesses from scratch, but no other job could ever pay off more. More pain, more gain, right? Had I not hired all those coaches and gotten fed the fuck up with not getting the results I needed to keep my business long term, I'd never have invested the money I did into Alessandro to finally find out why I'd been so stuck. And ironically, after my first session with him, and I started actually moving in the right direction and honing my skills, and he helped me tweak some other things in my creator field, I actually made the most money from my business I'd ever made in the six months that followed. My level of determination and deep knowing since I was a kid that I was supposed to have a successful business is what led me to invest at least 100k by now into myself and my business. 30k of that which I consolidated into the debt relief program. Thank you, National Debt Relief. You guys, America, America runs on debt, quite literally. And if you've gotten caught in that trap, I do. I this is not a sponsored ad. I really do highly recommend National Debt Relief. They made it super, super easy for me to just get out of that hole that I was in. And again, the full story on that is in the previous episode, and it ends with a an absolute wild plot twist that I could never have even dreamed of due to implementing the new financial tools I learned in Alessandro's financial mastery class. It was just wild. So if you have a knowing of something or a deep desire for it, stop at nothing. If I stopped when I had to consolidate five credit cards worth of debt, or when I'd gone through my first four-month stint with no clients, or when I cried myself rivers of hopeless misery, or when five consults in a row said no, next lesson in this episode is on that, or when I felt beyond frustrated and confused watching years fly by and nothing really changing for me, then I wouldn't be where I am now. Honing skills that are going to not only change my own life in amazing ways and already have, and the lives of those I love, but these are skill sets and teachings that are quite literally guaranteed to make me millions of dollars from my business. And yes, that has been intuitively tested by my teacher. Part of the negative spiritual programming out there in the world is that if you are spiritual, you shouldn't need money and you shouldn't want money. That the universe will just provide whatever you need. But wealth is directly correlated to the amount of people you help. Wealth is your platform to help more and more people. If your soul is on a mission to help tons of humans on the planet and you actually, you know, figure out the way to do it, such as I said, stop at nothing, just keep freaking going, then you are guaranteed an income that would blow your mind right now. Okay, so the lesson on a bunch of consults saying no, this lesson is illustrated with my business story, but apply it to any area of your life for some major positive changes. The lesson is to listen to your damn self, okay? And my example is just because someone is farther ahead than you and they fully understand what your services are capable of. Again, my example, like input your own example here, you still have to meet yourself where you are. The first five coaches I had, which was over like a three-year period, had told me the exact same thing, the exact dollar amount that my 12-week health coaching program where I helped people lose weight, increase energy, and reverse pre-diabetes, and yes, I still do this, was worth and needed to be sold at$3,000 for the three-month program. And I'd only ever sold those packages for$850. Do you think I was subconsciously or even consciously able to back a$2,150 jump overnight? Absolutely freaking not. So what happened? I would have consults with all these referrals from friends or people who found me online. It would be a great conversation where they were absolutely certain my program could help them, I was certain I could help them, and then we got to the price. They all said yes, though I could hear the fear in their voice, so I offered discounts to all of them, or they would just say, Oh God, that's way too much, and then I would say, Well, okay, well, I you know, I can see you're dedicated, oh, you're a single parent, here's a discount. Then they would say yes, and then I would never hear from them again. Humans all have innate intuition, the ability to read energy, whether we are consciously aware that we are doing that or not. So what was happening in those situations was that my prospects were subconsciously picking up on the fact that I was, in fact, not feeling or believing that my program was worth the price. Yes, it was worth it and then some, but I was not rooted to that. So because I fell off and they could easily pick up on my shakiness, then they felt off. Would you ever spend$3,000 on something you and the seller both fell off about? You wouldn't, and they didn't. I tried selling that price at the will of other people for three years. I sold nothing, absolutely nothing at that rate unless I gave discounts, but even then, usually the people would ghost. I think I had two, maybe three people said yes to the discount. It's amazing, you know, incredible that these coaches believed in my program that much, and I did too, but I didn't believe in myself as a coach that much. And constantly selling too big a price and constantly getting nose did nothing to help me strengthen that belief because nos did not get me more coaching practice, that's for sure. Had I listened to myself and sold the packages for$1,200 or$1,500, I would bet I would have a very different story. But the lesson is worth way more than a few rounds of$3,000 because it is a lesson I will take with me forever. So thanks, higher self, for planning that one. Definitely got the message loud and clear. And that lesson of self-trust was actually threaded a lot throughout my life and business until about the last year when I finally freaking got it. The amount of self-trust I had was exceptionally low, basically forever, which is why I spent so much time and money hiring advice and courses from other people to tell me what to do. I was always the good student, um, did everything I was told, always, you know, just followed the rules and did that in life for a very long time. Have some stories where I stopped following the rules, and I think just I think I needed that, even though I got into a little bit of trouble. But that's beside the point. Nothing in life has paid off more than developing self-trust. And don't feel bad if yours is low, too, because we aren't taught to trust ourselves. We are taught the opposite. Sit at a desk, get good grades like I did, there's one right answer. If you want to self-express, you could be punished or medicated. And my personal favorite that has gotten a lot of people into trouble the past few years, listen to the experts. But back to business. Business is personal development on the highest dose of steroids. You need a real big pair of balls, especially for those of us who started our businesses online, to be that vulnerable, that cringe. I have archived most of my old stuff, and to keep going even when you feel like nothing is working and when people are calling you crazy. Because you know in your heart you are on the right path. I think that leading and following yourself is one of the bravest things you can do in a society that thrives on going the safe route and blending in. But it's it makes sense because one of our core needs as humans is to belong. So when we intentionally put ourselves in situations where we don't belong, right? Like my friends weren't starting online businesses making cringe posts selling shit. I did not feel like I belonged, but I knew in my heart that that is what I was supposed to do, and that cringe phase, I feel like most of us probably have that as online businesses, especially if it's your first rodeo, you're gonna be cringe, you're gonna look back and be like, I just it's ridiculous. I can't even believe just as someone who always did follow the rules and did not feel safe standing out. I mean, I was the kid in class who always turned B red if I had to speak. I actually there was a couple college classes where the teachers wanted to give me A's, but they couldn't because part of the class you were supposed to be part of the discussions. They were literature classes. I was an English major in college, and they had to give me B's because I just did not want to speak. So I think also I love looking at everything from a bigger perspective and um just seeing kind of what the overall plan was with that. So I think that part of my lesson it was with my business was to kind of shed that and just be like, fuck it, this is who I am, take it or leave it, and sure, I might look back and be like, wow, Crystal, damn girl, like you really you really did that. But look at where it's getting me. So I'm super proud of myself. And if that's you too, I hope you're proud of yourself. Do not give up. Like to my fellow business homies, homies doing anything, I will never stop saying it. Do not give up. Your soul has something so special that it came to provide to the world, and every lesson, every setback, every river of misery that flows beneath your eyeballs, and every high five you give your partner after signing a new client are all stepping stones to the life that you came to live, which is to help as much of humanity as possible if you are going the business route. It is not designed to be easy, despite what a lot of people will tell you. I have heard more than a thousand times that if it's aligned, it'll feel easy. It'll just flow. That is garbage advice. If it is aligned, it will be highly reflective because you have massive growth you will need to move through and accomplish to get to the riches, whether it's literal riches or figurative riches. Just like a relationship, the most impactful, beautiful, and long-lasting relationships are also the ones where you learn and grow the most. My most amazing relationships, I had a lot of growth. I learned a lot about myself and other people, and it they were they were not easy, but I look back and I'm like, that was it was so amazing because of how much came of that. And I think about people who are, you know, couples who have been married 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 years, they don't say it just felt aligned and everything flowed. They're like, no, dude, you have to wake up every single freaking day and make that decision every day to keep going and keep growing with that person and keep saying yes to them and yourself. So no, shit just doesn't flow when it's aligned. There are signs of alignment for sure, but you're supposed to learn and grow in business. It's I mean, if you have if you really have a business that is meant to impact the world in huge ways, don't feel bad if it's not just happening for you overnight. Business isn't just about service, it is about the journey of soul growth. Follow your heart, trust yourself, never quit because you were literally created to do this. No matter what age you are when you start, no matter what you think your flaws are, it was all made with your purpose in mind. You were made with your purpose in mind. Every flaw, every strength, you the package of you is perfect. Alright. That's it. Thank you guys so much for listening. And if you share a screenshot of the conscious glow up on your social media, I will send you a free copy of Rise and Thrive, the manifestation journal slash subconscious rewiring guide slash habit tracker that I designed. It is fifty nine pages, so you can fill out what feels exciting for now and just take your time with it. I hope you have a great day or evening, and I will be back with another episode soon.