I’ve known Rha Goddess for 12 years — and now that I write it down, all I can think is that it seems like we’ve been friends for so much longer than that.
I met Rha through a series of beautiful synchronicities. Shortly after we met, Rha became my coach. She helped me release romantic illusions and overcome codependency, and then she guided me as I built up my business in its early years.
I share this whole story in detail in my foreword to her new book, The Calling: 3 Fundamental Shifts to Stay True, Get Paid, and Do Good, which comes out tomorrow!
About Rha Goddess and ‘The Calling’
I’m so excited that Rha Goddess now has a book out, because the world needs her message. Anyone who’s seen Rha teach at Spirit Junkie Masterclass knows how deeply inspiring, passionate and compassionate she is.
Keep reading to learn about Rha and about The Calling. And be sure to read this whole post, because at the end I include a manifesting exercise from the book!
About ‘The Calling’
Rha’s wisdom, beautiful guidance and compassion all come through in The Calling. In the book, Rha teaches her six-step method for finding and following your true calling and redefining success. She gives you a road map for how to stay true, get paid and do good.
Rha says, “If you’re stuck in a never-ending loop of hyper achievement or driven by the quest for external validation, or hiding out because the notion of what really makes you happy is just too scary, I want to show you that it is possible for you to live a meaningful life on your own terms.”
In this book, Rha will do for you what she did for me. She’ll guide you to become aware of what holds you back, and then she’ll help you take responsibility for your life while cultivating immense self-compassion.
This book is exactly what we need right now.
About Rha Goddess
I’m just going to share a shortened version of Rha’s bio with you here. You can imagine me reading this out loud onstage, because I’ve done it many times…
Rha Goddess is the entrepreneurial soul coach behind hundreds of breakthrough change makers, cultural visionaries and social entrepreneurs.
Rha has drawn on the power of creativity, culture and community to move hearts, minds and policy. Her work has focused on issues of racial justice and equality, electoral politics, offender aid and restoration, mental health and youth and women’s empowerment.
Rha has led the conversation around a “whole self” approach to entrepreneurship as key to a more just, harmonious and sustainable economy and culture. As CEO of Move The Crowd, Rha is galvanizing a movement of 3 million entrepreneurs dedicated to reimagining “work” as a vehicle for creative expression, financial freedom and societal transformation.
Gabby and Rha Goddess: Interview About ‘The Calling’
Who is ‘The Calling’ for?
Gabby: Hi Rha! Okay, so first things first. Tell me about The Calling and why you wrote it. Who’s it for? What do you want people to get out of it?
Rha Goddess: For me this book is for every single soul who knows they’re here to do more, be more and have more. It’s for people who, even if they can’t put words to it, they know there’s something else burning inside of them that wants to be expressed.
It doesn’t have anything to do with whether it’s a big, grandiose thing or something very personal like starting a family. There’s something tugging, pulling, calling, and they’re finally ready to figure out what it is. The book is designed to be a blueprint, to walk you step by step by step.
Many people hear the terms “purpose” and “calling,” and they think, “I don’t know what mine is,” or they get anxious. So the idea is to make it as accessible as possible.
Whether you want to do something massive or not, there is value in understanding who you are and what is the contribution that you are being invited to make — and that you want to make. Your soul’s deepest desire being expressed, and no judgment on that.
We all have a calling. We all have a very unique combination of abilities, talents, experiences and perspectives. All of them converge into this beautiful thing that we’re here to give to the world.
We give it whether we know it or not, whether we like it or not. We can’t stop it. It’s present just by virtue of the fact that we’re in the room. It’s our energy. The book helps you really own that and allow it in whatever way you so desire.
Stay true, get paid and do good
Gabby: The book is divided into 3 major parts: Stay True, Get Paid and Do Good. Can you explain what these mean?
Rha Goddess: In part 1, when I teach you to Stay True, you’ll recognize your creative strengths, accept responsibility for your current reality, forgive any self-imposed and societal limitations, and give voice to your vision, mission, and purpose. You’ll align your actions with your dreams, and celebrate a new level of clarity, authenticity, and self-love.
In part 2, when I put you on the path to Get Paid, you’ll begin by recognizing your relationship with money and capitalism, accepting responsibility for your current financial state, forgiving any constraints in your financial past, redefining and re-visualizing your role in your personal economy, aligning your business propositions with your values, and celebrating a new way of doing business.
Then, in part 3, you’ll leverage your capacity to Do Good by recognizing your full potential, accepting responsibility for being part of the solution, forgiving any judgment around not doing more sooner, re-visualizing what good means to you as you identify your highest contribution, aligning your actions with your movement, and celebrating your newfound meaningful contribution.
Dharma
Gabby: The concept of dharma comes up in the book. How do you think of dharma?
Rha Goddess: Dharma has definitions in many cultural and spiritual lineages. It has a complex definition. Path, sacred duty, vocation. We hear people talk a lot about the “path” part of the dharma — your destiny, your purpose. Yes, that’s part of it.
But what’s also part of dharma that doesn’t get talked about it quite as much is your true nature. Wayne Dyer called it your “I Am”-ness. That part of you that’s built into the fiber of your spirit. I see it as your true nature expressed as your path, your sacred duty, your vocation.
A lot of people wind up doing good work that is not your dharma. Steven Cope talks about this idea that people miss their dharma. They hang out in the vicinity of your dharma — I call it the “20 feet from stardom” syndrome. You end up being a backup singer in your own reality.
Why do we miss our dharma? It has to do with our belief that if we’re doing work out of obligation or some sense of sacrifice, that that matters in the scheme of our souls. And our soul is like, “Yeahhhh, okay, but not quite. There’s good work and there’s YOUR work, and I want you to get to your work.”
What do you believe about yourself?
Gabby: Early in the book, you guide readers to figure out what we believe about ourselves.
You write:
When I ask clients what they believe about themselves, they often feel confused about how to respond. After all, one day you might feel like a badass, ready to take on the world — and the next? A total failure. Why is that, and which is true?
How do we discern what we believe about ourselves?
Rha Goddess: A lot of us grapple with this. Where do we go to understand what we’ve taken in about who we are, who we’re not, what we’re capable of or not, what we’re allowed to do and want, and what we’re not allowed to do and want?
First we must slow down and ask ourselves: “What do I believe about myself? Where does it come from?”
For some people that’s an empowering thing to see. But many of us have taken in things, not even realizing it, and maybe that influence doesn’t necessarily empower us. We’ve taken in the cover of Vogue and thought, “That’s beautiful. I need to be that.”
Us asking ourselves the question “What do I believe about myself?” is revolutionary in and of itself. In your heart of hearts, what do you want to be true about you?
The ‘personal economy’
Gabby: In Part 2, ‘Get Paid,’ you help readers examine their relationship to capitalism, identify their money persona and much more. You also talk about the concept of the personal economy.
You write:
When it comes to money and how you wish to receive and allocate your financial resources, who do you want to be? What do you want to create? What is important to you? And how will your economic priorities play out in your day-to-day?
I love this. Can you break down what ‘personal economy’ means?
Rha Goddess: We’ve been so conditioned to believe the economy is an ominous thing outside of us that we have no control over.
In the book I say…
You’ve been conditioned to be at the mercy of our economic system, not to mention the way the economy dictates your emotional and financial relationship with the world. It tells you who to be, and what to buy, and where to work so that you can conform to its standards. The issue here is that these mandates are designed to serve the current economy’s interests, which only benefits a tiny portion of our population.
The traditional system of capitalism has fostered a culture of greed and exploitation for that tiny portion in power, and a culture of scarcity and separation for the rest of us. If you buy into this, you not only experience feelings of scarcity around money, but those feelings also bleed into other facets of your life — you feel a scarcity around love, acknowledgment, opportunity, time, health, and well-being.
But at heart, the definition of economy is very simple. The term “economy” is defined as the wealth and resources of a nation or region, based on the production and consumption of goods and services.
How can we create a definition or a way of operating and practicing that honors what we value? The whole idea of creating your own personal economy is asking yourself what you value, and what are the values by which you want to be operating and doing business in the world?
This includes how you want to make your money, spend your money, save your money, invest your money and so on. It’s about taking back your right to participate. We’ve been indoctrinated to believe that there’s a global economy and that we’re at the mercy of it.
We ARE the economy. —Rha Goddess
We ARE the economy. The choices and decisions we make actually do dictate what the ultimate bottom line is. When we can understand that and think about it on a micro level in terms of our own personal situation.
We can ask ourselves:
- What kind of economy am I trying to create for myself? A surplus economy or a deficit economy?
- One of greed and exploitation or love and abundance?
- How important is money to me? What do I really need?
How to do good in the world
Gabby: Let’s talk about Doing Good, which is Part 3 of the book but is also central to everything. How do we hold ourselves back from doing good?
Rha Goddess: Many of us have a fundamental belief that there’s not enough to go around. Not enough money, time, recognition, anything. We project it onto ourselves. We think, “I’m not enough. I don’t have the capacity. I don’t have the bandwidth.”
Especially because we’re being sold every day how our world is going to hell in a handbasket with a big ol’ bow on top. If you see tanks and missiles, you’re going think, “Oh my God, I have no idea what I’m going to do about this. Let me just think about what I’m going to feed my kid today.”
You contract, shut down, tune out. You think there’s nothing in the world you can do to affect that hot mess out there. As much as we think it’s great work and admire the people who do it, we think it’s not practical. It’s not for us.
That separation enables us to continue to have a world that petrifies us, makes us sick. If you’re not participating, there’s no way we’re getting a different world. Because we see the world we’ve gotten from the people who do participate.
We have to believe that whatever good we do matters, no matter how big or how small. We also need to see the connections between our intention to do good and how it has ripples.
So many of us feel inadequate in this regard. We think, “I’m not MLK or Mother Teresa, so pack it up!” Plus everyone is dictating to you what your “do good” needs to look like.
Release that judgment. Where are you called? Doing good is a way of operating, living, working, acting in the world. What is the prerequisite for that? You’re doing your thing. It’s innate to you.
Give yourself permission to have that be enough in whatever scope and scale you’re doing it. If you’re doing something that is true to you, you don’t have to manage how often you’re showing up for it. You’re actually fighting to find time for it because you’re so fed by it.
Traditional activism, on the other hand, can make you feel so depleted because you burn out. Often the energy is pushing, resisting. That’s not to say you can’t do that traditional activism like marching in the street and holding signs. But can you stand in the street from a place of celebration, dedication, commitment and love? That sustains so much more than rage and anger.
The reworking of activism is one thing I hope this book will invite. There’s a lot of external pressure to fit some mold. There’s so much more opportunity available when people are given space to genuinely find their way inside of it.
The charge and invitation in the book is to be willing to grapple with all the stuff that gets in the way of your ability to own your thing and decide what your contribution can be.
A Mantra for Becoming a Conscious Creator
Here’s one of the first exercises Rha shares in the book! This is a mantra for becoming a conscious, active shaper of your reality.
Rha writes:
Recognizing your power to co-create your reality is the first step toward staying true and pursuing your calling. If you are looking to anything outside of you to validate your existence, you’re wasting your time. The external world is mostly a reflection of what you believe, think, and act on….
We each have a purpose that poises us for unlimited and unequivocal greatness — that is the truth. No matter how victimhood has tried to place you in its grasp, it’s up to you to set the intention to get free, to pursue the things you really want, believe the outcome to be possible, and then take a leap of faith to create your desired True. Paid. Good. reality. It all begins with recognizing and owning your creative strengths.
The first exercise Rha teaches in the book is one you can practice the entire time you’re reading the book. It’s a mantra “designed to help shift your mindset from any form of victimhood to one of conscious creation and help you develop a greater awareness around your current state and your desired reality,” she says.
This mantra is:
“I am a conscious creator, and I have the ability to create the life I most desire.”
Here’s what Rha says about how to use this mantra…
Repeat this mantra at least five times a day. I’d like you to do this once in the morning in the mirror when you first wake up. Look into your own eyes, and say it.
During the day, say it three times — perhaps when you are transitioning between work projects or traveling from one destination to the other, just before your lunch break, or before you pick up the kids.
Finally, repeat the mantra in the evening, after you climb into bed and just before you close your eyes.
Enjoy this practice and this beautiful book! Here are some more blog posts to check out, too:
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