Been tracking something for a while now, and the pattern's getting harder to ignore. The founders I know who've lasted 15+ years without flaming out—they're all running some version of the same protocol. They're building aggressive growth trajectories and they're weirdly grounded.
Not one or the other. Both, simultaneously.
What caught my attention: these aren't the "rise and grind" types burning through their third nervous system, and they're not the "cosmic download" folks whose revenue went to zero when they moved to Bali. They're something else entirely. Still trying to figure out what to call it.
Okara spat out "rooted ascension".
The Problem (And Why It's Getting Worse)
Here's what I'm seeing in the data:
Deloitte's 2024 survey found 77% of executives have experienced burnout at their current job, up from 69% pre-pandemic. McKinsey's own attrition reports show senior talent leaving at rates they haven't published transparently, but the anecdotal signal is everywhere—people are just done.
On the other end, the "spiritual business" content market is flooded with broken models. Companies like Gaia (GAIA) saw subscriber growth flatten after 2021; MindValley pivoted from pure content to certification programs because the economics didn't work. "Raise your frequency" content doesn't pay the bills when AWS invoices come due.
The frame most people use is binary: either you're building billion-dollar companies or you're burning sage while your metrics crater. Either you're a mercenary or a mystic.
What's interesting is that frame might be the actual problem, not a description of reality.
What I've Been Testing (The Stack)
I've been running my own version of this for about three years now—what I call a conscious stack with 5 (±2) layers. When I calibrate it for simultaneous grounding and growth, each layer handles both practical execution and deeper pattern recognition without the system crashing.
Not saying this is the way. Just what's working for me so far.
1 — Culture Layer
The collective narrative ships with what I'd call "escape velocity" defaults—beam me up, get me out, transcend this mess. I've been doing quarterly 72-hour media fasts (zero news, zero social, zero spiritual podcasts) and tracking decision-making speed before and after.
What I've noticed: latency drops when I'm not processing everyone else's fear signals. Decisions that used to take three days take three hours. Could be placebo. Could be real. The pattern's held for eight quarters now, so I keep running the experiment.
Your attention might be worth more than your capital. Perhaps treat it like you'd treat AWS root credentials—protected, audited, not handed out freely.
2 — Belief Systems Layer
The "Earth as school" metaphor creates this hierarchical consensus: teacher/student, pass/fail, graduation/ascension. I've been testing a different frame: Earth as co-founder in an ongoing R&D project. Every failure is a feature update. Every karmic loop is data.
On new moons, I pause and ask: "What story loses coherence when I look directly at it?" The ones that dissolve under inspection? I let them drop. The ones that get stronger? Those stay in the codebase.
Not sure this makes sense to everyone. Makes sense to me.
3 — Values Layer
Perfectionism is single-threaded processing. Integration is multi-threaded. What I'm learning: my contradictions aren't bugs—they might actually be features. The crooked parts of my business model are often the humanity that makes it land with real people.
Maybe stop sanding everything flat. Maybe the rough edges are load-bearing.
4 — Genetics/Body Layer
Here's something I didn't expect: you can't process high-bandwidth insight through a nervous system that isn't grounded. The body is the hardware. If the hardware's fried, the software crashes.
What's worked for me: 4-7-8 breath cycles (in for 4, hold for 7, out for 8) with my forehead on cold glass. Dr. Andrew Huberman's research on physiological sighs backs up the mechanism—bilateral stimulation plus thermal grounding. I visualize light moving from crown to belly. Sounds woo. Feels like impedance matching for a meat-based operating system.
Also sounds weird when I type it out. But it works, so it stays in the protocol.
5 — Practical Application Layer
Been building what I call profit-prana closed loops for about 18 months. Weekly practice: I state my invoice target out loud, then immediately send 10% to a soil regeneration project (currently funding biochar research in regenerative ag operations).
One minute I'm a mercenary. The next, a gardener. That used to feel like whiplash. Now it feels like a complete system—revenue as a riverbed carrying nutrients both directions.
Lunar Calibration (Or: Timing Matters)
You already time product launches around market cycles and earnings calendars. What's interesting: I started timing mine around actual astronomical cycles about a year ago. The results have been... weird. In a good way.
Here's the protocol I'm testing:
New Moon: Register intent. I walk 108 barefoot steps in my garden (or nearest park) and code my wishes into physical substrate. Logbook check-in.
First Quarter: Kill one offer, scale one. Brutal feature pruning. The moon's doing it with light; I mirror it with business.
Full Moon: Publish metrics. I've started doing transparent revenue snapshots under full moons. Accountability to something bigger than my board. Keeps me honest.
Last Quarter: Retire my lowest-joy SKU. If it doesn't light me up, it's deprecated code.
I have no idea if the moon is causing anything or if it's just a calendar hack that imposes useful discipline. Don't really care. The system works.
Why This Might Matter More Now
We're watching the old extraction economy eat itself in real time. The builders who seem positioned for the next decade are the ones who can hold paradox without breaking: profit and regeneration, scale and soil, code and cosmos.
Your high-performing friends from consulting are burning out because their models have no ground wire—no way to discharge the voltage. Your spiritual friends are running out of runway because their models have no revenue engine.
Maybe rooted ascension is the architecture for neither. Maybe it's for the ones who know that quarterly taxes and deeper purpose can coexist in the same ledger—they just need better translation protocols.
Still figuring out how to explain this to people who haven't experienced it. Open to better language.
Operator Takeaways (What You Could Test)
If any of this resonates, here are three experiments worth running:
Try one 72-hour media fast this quarter. Track decision latency before and after. Note: this will feel terrible for the first 24 hours. That's the signal, not a bug.
Audit your offers by next new moon. Ask: "Which SKU lights me up? Which one drains me?" Kill the drain, double down on the light. Revenue might dip short-term. Energy will rise. Track both.
Build one profit-prana loop this month. State your invoice target, immediately allocate 10% to regeneration (soil, water, education—something that compounds beyond you). Run it for 90 days. Watch what changes in how you relate to money.
These aren't prescriptions. They're experiments. Run them, log results, adjust variables.
Where I'm At Right Now
Capricorn crescent tonight. I've been working with quartz crystal—something old yet new. Feels like an anchor point.
Not sure I've fully cracked the code on balancing "cosmic downloads" with quarterly planning cycles. But the pattern's real, the experiments are yielding data, and I'm discovering things I never knew (consciously).
Maybe that's enough to keep iterating.
What changed in your system design when you started pairing precision with something bigger than ROI? Curious what you're seeing.
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