The Business of Becoming
The Business of Becoming is a podcast for soul-led leaders, conscious entrepreneurs, sacred disruptors, and anyone who knows they were never meant to settle.
Hosted by Sabrina Riley, speaker, bestselling author, and conscious business guide, this space invites you into the deeper work beneath the work. Not strategies, step-by-step formulas, performing, or proving. But real, unfiltered transmissions to help you remember who you are, why you're here, and the impact you're meant to have.
Each episode explores business as a spiritual path through the lens of embodiment, nervous system capacity, Human Design, identity, and authentic leadership.
This is a space for those who are building something real without abandoning themselves to do it.
Because following the rules was never the assignment.
Because presence will always matter more than performance.
Because you were never here to play the game, you were meant to transform it.
This isn’t just about business.
It’s about becoming the version of you that can change the world.
The Business of Becoming
The Vow
Join me as we launch The Business of Becoming.
Join me as we begin this incredible journey together.
This episode is about the vow I made to myself at 15. The new vow I just made to myself this week. And how we can keep these vows to ourselves.
Because we have all made one. We have all vowed not to settle. We have all vowed to truly live. We have all vowed to dream big.
And then somewhere along the way we found all the reasons why we couldn't do that.
I so loved sharing this with you and I can't wait to come back each week to share more.
Hey friends, I am so incredibly excited to share this new creation with you. Welcome to the business of becoming. This is so much more than a podcast. These are transmissions to help you to come back to who you really are. In many ways, this is a podcast about conscious business and about the work that we do in the world. about the inner work. It's also about the spirituality. It's about the inner knowing. This podcast isn't one-dimensional because we aren't either. And so I'm just so excited to be able to share this journey with you because I know that it's going to be something really beautiful. And I know that I have so much to share with you. So where do we begin? This first episode is called The Vow. And it's called that because there was a vow that I made to myself at 15 that I think mirrors the promises that we make to ourselves, especially at a young age, to do things that we love, to have impact in the world. And whether you've made a promise to yourself or you even just thought that you wanted something more at 15 or at 60, I know this is going to resonate with you and I hope it can inspire you to begin to do more of that work in the world because the business of becoming, doing something that we truly love, doing the things that we're meant to do is so much more than just making money. It's about the things that really light us up, the things that only we can do, the things that only we can say, the things that only we can create. So when I was a teenager, bowling was the only sport that I played. There was no second, there was no third, there was no other alternative. I was all in on bowling. It was quite literally my life and my worth. And so I played at multiple leagues, similar to like baseball or soccer or other sports. You can play in multiple different leagues. You can play in travel leagues. So I was doing all of the things. I was at the bowling alley for five or six days a week. And one of those days was a Sunday night league with my parents. It sort of became a family league. Most of the teams were families, which was just different because most of the time you played with your friends or maybe you got together a team of people that were just really, really good just because you could do that. But Sunday was really focused on family. So my parents were... not nearly as good as I was. Bowling came very naturally to me, and it didn't to them. The Sunday night league was really just more about spending time with me. And so often I would take Sunday night a little bit less seriously than I would other days, especially the travel leagues. And sometimes the travel league had already happened earlier that Sunday, And I was tired. I had already spent all day bowling and then I still had this league to play in as well. And so for better or for worse, I would relax a little bit more. I wouldn't think about it so much. Sometimes I would even just be too tired to think about it, to overthink, to try too hard. And my dad is the one who more than anyone helped me with that more than anyone my dad is the reason that i learned to be able to share my feelings that i learned to do the inner work he was the one to really help me with this at the beginning he taught me these things from a young age my mom tried to as well but for whatever reason we were both a little bit more stubborn we would butt heads And I just wouldn't receive the things that she had to say the right way. But I would often receive what my dad had to say, even when it was uncomfortable, even when maybe outwardly it didn't seem like I cared or it didn't seem like I was receiving the message. I was learning and I was growing because he was helping me understand meaningful things like being grateful for the moment. accepting your performance that day and not beating yourself up or not shaming yourself if you feel like what you did that day wasn't good enough. So this one particular Sunday night, I don't remember exactly how I was doing. I think it was about average. It wasn't really exciting, but it was fine. And my dad was playing horribly. And Yeah, absolutely. all of the things for him to try to score better or at least to enjoy the night a little bit more regardless of the score. And he wasn't really listening. He wasn't really caring for what I had to say. He was playing so horribly that night that if I'm being completely honest, if it were me, I also would have been really frustrated with myself. So Then we finish up and we're walking to the car. And I'm kind of continuing to try to help. I'm continuing to try to tell him it's okay. He'll do better next time. And I don't remember the exact words he said to me, but I remember the feeling that it gave me. He said something to the effect of, I just have to accept that this was the best that I could do. And for a moment, it seemed as if he was giving me a similar message that he honestly even still to this day has to give me, a message of patience and a message of acceptance, knowing that it's not worth beating yourself up because maybe that was the best that you could do today. But that wasn't really what he meant. That wasn't really what the words were implying this time. What he was really saying was, I don't feel good enough. Maybe sometimes I get lucky. Maybe sometimes you see me perform a little bit better, but that's a fluke. I'm not worthy of that. This is the best that I can do. And my entire world shattered because between everything he had been trying to help me with, And also my mom telling me, since I was as young as I can remember, that I can do anything that I put my mind to, I at least thought they believed in themselves to some extent. We weren't wealthy. They didn't finish college. They didn't have a prestigious job. There was nothing to make me think that they were crushing it. But at the same time, I didn't think that they were hiding so much pain so much lack of worth and all of a sudden it just made sense to me I could just see where him and my mom don't believe in themselves and I could also simultaneously see so many other people around me that felt the same way most of the people I had ever known Especially because I grew up in the Southern United States. I grew up in Louisiana. That is not a place where self-esteem is abundant. That is not a place where courage and being different and confidence is abundant. And if it looks like it is, usually it's actually pretty fake. And that's not a knock on them. It's just there's a lot of generational things that have caused that. And a lot of people that have settled into a certain way of life and telling themselves it's what they want because it's so much easier to tell yourself that story and to try to be okay with less than it is to dream big and than it is to not settle. And so... All in this one moment, my entire world is shattering. I'm realizing everyone is settling. And my parents have given me this gift where I don't want to settle. I'm not even willing to settle. I feel the desire to be alive and to create a life that is beautiful in my bones. And I almost can't settle. It seems impossible to me. at 15 that I could settle. And so I made a vow to myself at that night. I vowed literally that. I vowed to never settle and I vowed to figure out what it means to truly live. Whether that took me 10 years, whether that took me an entire lifetime. I vowed that by the time I got to my deathbed, I would be able to say that I truly lived. Now in my head, that also meant having a gigantic impact on the world and that meant all kinds of things related to what I viewed as success at that point. But I still knew even if all of those things didn't happen, I would find the answers And I would make sure that I had truly lived because that would be the only thing that I would ever truly regret is if I was at the end of my life and I had realized that I never truly lived. And so that's exactly what my work is born out of. That night, my entire life changed because All of a sudden, I saw a mission. I saw a purpose. I saw a way of impacting the world. And I still to this day believe that so many people are settling because we grow. And then we find other ways to settle without dreaming bigger. And I'm not saying that that means making millions of dollars. I'm not saying that that means impacting billions of people. I'm not saying that that means having 100 employees. That's not it. But we as entrepreneurs are some of the people who are settling the most. We took the time to leave behind something else, which probably for every single one of us, we consciously knew wasn't good for us for one reason or another. We didn't like the amount of money. We didn't like the environment. We didn't like the lack of creativity. We didn't like the lack of innovation. We can name a hundred things that we didn't like about ourselves the corporate environment, and the old ways, and yet we've still come to do so much of the same. I know so many entrepreneurs that are not truly alive. They're gravitating towards things they don't actually care about. They're still gravitating towards things that make money. And if you are meant to be someone teaching people how to optimize their LinkedIn, then that's great. Maybe that's a unique thing that you truly love and that you actually want to be doing. Maybe the way that you do it, no one else could ever do. But social media optimization is a perfect example. There are so many people out there making money They've given themselves more freedom in so many ways. Closer to being financially free, if not already financially free. Freedom of time. They've done so much, yet they haven't gone very far with that. Because do you truly feel like you're impacting people? Are you truly living? Are you truly excited by the work that you do? Or are you subconsciously, maybe even consciously scared of doing something bigger because you don't know what that looks like? Maybe the big thing, the money doesn't make sense and you have no clue where it's going to come from. And I know exactly how that feels because I spent many years settling. I lost sight of these dreams and this business experience and the writing I'm doing and this podcast for many years. I was dreaming about these things probably more than ever between 18 to 20. And then between 20 and 28, I slowly lost myself more and more. I slowly settled more and more. I slowly convinced myself that I wasn't capable. And then I couldn't do all of these amazing things. And then I wasn't really that unique. And then I didn't have much of a story to tell. I didn't have much wisdom to share. And I just became a shell of myself. And I, at one point was not even really here. If you were in my life between call it 25 and 28, if you didn't experience a concert with me, if you weren't with me during a live music experience, chances are, you didn't know me at all and i didn't even really know myself anymore i had hidden who i really was and i'm not even just talking about me being transgender i'm i'm just talking about like the life that was in me and these big dreams and the wisdom and my unique gifts I hid all of those things so deep down that I couldn't understand that they even existed anymore. In my mind, they didn't. In my mind, the things I felt when I was a teenager was just a fluke. And I was never meant to dream that big. And I struggled financially for so many years that that alone made me feel like I'm not good enough. The evidence the world is showing me is a perfect demonstration of how I'm not good enough and I'm never going to do any of the things that I was dreaming of. So if you saw me within those few years, probably about 24 to 28, you likely didn't see me at all. Because I wasn't there. I may have been sitting next to you, but I wasn't there. I was trying to pretend to even remotely enjoy my life. But on the inside, I hated myself. And I had immense shame for not doing any of this work. For not doing anything at all. Starting a podcast, writing, posting on social media, starting a business for not doing any of the things that were working towards my dreams. I just constantly found more reasons to settle and I tried to find reasons to be grateful. My health insurance when I was at JP Morgan was incredible, especially because it would have paid for some other surgeries and things that I might want. As a transgender woman, I was paid pretty well. I didn't really have much of a ceiling on how I was paid either. I mean, there was a reasonable threshold that you probably weren't going to pass, but I wasn't actually capped. I only had to work from nine to five because I worked within the branch setting. I couldn't. work when i got home i didn't have access to everything so i at least to the extent that i allowed myself i had that freedom i could go home and i could actually relax so if i compare myself to what a lot of other people have those few years were actually amazing they're things that it looks like i should be grateful for But I don't regret not being grateful for them. I don't regret following that ache inside of me because I used to think that that ache for more was just me being needy or just me being ungrateful. And yes, maybe there was a small part of that that was. Maybe there was a small part of me that was like, get me the hell out. I will not... even try to be grateful for what I have because this is not okay. So sure, that part of me was there too, but there was always a part of me that was trying to keep this vow. There was always a part of me that just wouldn't let go of Sabrina, that wouldn't let go of the person that could really make a difference. And I have a feeling that you know exactly how that feels. I have a feeling there is a part of you that is still holding on for something bigger, that is still holding on for something that you truly love, for something that's really impactful because it's something only that you uniquely can do. I finally started to fulfill that vow at 28. Today is June 18th. Just yesterday, June 17th, 2025, was the two-year anniversary of me finding myself. I was at a music festival when it happened. My whole realization of who I am and who I'm always becoming, because it's not static either, and The belief that I could dream again dropped in that night. So since 28, I have started to fulfill that vow. And coming back to that slowing down, the universe has given me so many signs lately to slow down. Until yesterday, I thought that slowing down meant, hey, be careful with launching something new. It's partially why I waited on this podcast. Hey, just go lay on the couch and just wait for the answers. And I now realize that wasn't it at all. The universe was trying to say, stop and smell the roses. Because in some ways, I'm doing that more than ever. I'm enjoying my life more than ever. But in many ways... there's still so much more room for me to truly enjoy how far I've come, what I've accomplished, who I've become, who I'm still becoming, and the impact that I'm already starting to have by telling more of my story. So that's the new vow that I made to myself. Because I truly feel like the old one is complete. I learned how to live. I learned how to love myself. I learned how to not settle. My business and especially this podcast is proof of that. So now the new vow is that I don't take the next decade, the next 30 years, whatever it is, so seriously. Because The last 15 years, I was extremely critical of myself. I was extremely harsh. I found so many ways to tell myself that I wasn't good enough, to tell myself that I wasn't ready, to tell myself that there was so much more to be done. And don't get me wrong, there's always more work to be done. But when you've done the work, you also have to take time to step back and really enjoy that. And so that's what this next version of me does. This next version of me is not only truly living and finding the answers and sharing the wisdom, but she's no longer doing it from a place of what's the next thing I have to do? What's the next move I have to make in order to have bigger impact. She's doing things like this podcast, not because I need to have a million people listening to it, but because I know that this is such a beautiful space for me to share with you because I know that when I speak, I don't think about what I'm going to say. I have not spent 24 minutes with you just now trying to craft a very particular message. Yes, I had decided what the episode was going to be about because starting with this vow tells you so much about me, so much about what the podcast is supposed to be about, so much of what my work is, and hopefully it also inspires you to either make or keep your own vow. Because again, I think you've already made one. I think there was a younger version of you that already wanted something so much more. So with that, I will leave you to reflect. I'm planning on joining you here weekly. Because already, this was one of the most incredible things that I've ever done. I have loved the last 25 minutes like no other. It felt like it lasted five seconds. And since the new version of me is stepping into that power, I know that I have so much to share with you. So I hope... you'll continue to join me here each week because we're going to grow we're going to become that new version of ourselves and then we're also going to celebrate that and we're not going to chase the next version we're not going to chase the next piece of inner work and we're going to fulfill those vows we're going to do some really incredible things because Conscious business is what's going to change the world. We are the ones who will do work that we're lit up by. We are the ones that will do work that will have real impact because it's truly our own. We are the ones who will have wealth because of the unique things that we're doing and We're going to use it for good. We are the ones who are going to create the companies where the employees are safe, where they can show up authentically, where they can become more of who they truly are, where they can be creative and innovative too. That is going to change the world. Because when we put more of the wealth and the power and the impact in the hands of those of us that truly care, we are going to make so much more of a difference than we could ever imagine. So again, thank you for joining me. Thank you for investing in yourself. And if you do anything, please, this week, do one thing. that's more vulnerable. I don't want to say more authentic because sometimes we hold on to what that means. We hold on to who we think we are instead of who we're becoming. So let's do one thing that pushes us over the edge this week. Let's do one thing that's more vulnerable than we would have done before because the world deserves us showing up fully. The world deserves that vulnerability. I will see you here again, and I hope you have an amazing, amazing rest of your week.
