In this talk, Donna Brown shares her life story and the convergence of her spiritual and business paths, illustrating how the two once‑separate realms can be integrated into a single purpose. She recounts a challenging childhood, a series of varied careers (fashion design, garden installations, TV formats, cookbook authoring), and the persistent feeling of being an impostor while searching for a single defining purpose. A pivotal moment came when a friend’s channeling offered two insights: life is not a linear highway and purpose can be viewed as a walk through a garden. Using the garden metaphor, Donna explains that purpose is a way of being rather than a specific job title, emphasizing the importance of roots (spiritual development) and the visible canopy (business expression). She describes her ongoing study with Tibetan Buddhist masters and how she translates practices such as meditation, offering, and dedication into business actions—e.g., setting intention for the benefit of all directly and indirectly before any activity. She reports concrete outcomes like record TV ratings and clients tripling revenue after applying these practices. The talk concludes with an invitation for listeners to treat their business as a spiritual path and to experiment with integrating spiritual ascension into entrepreneurial growth.
Chapters
Who am I? Why am I here? And what is my purpose? These are 3 questions that we all ask ourselves many, many times throughout our lifetime. And so I'm here to share a little bit of my story and something of what I've gleaned along my own search for answers to these questions. I really came at it from 2 angles. On the one hand was the sort of spiritual side, my relationship with myself and with others and with the world. And then kind of over here was, you know, my business, my work in the world. What was I supposed to accomplish? Because I come from a generation where the 2 were supposed to be kept extremely separate, and it was unprofessional to in any way let them spill over. Little did I know that these 2 journeys would lead to one destination. I had a challenging childhood, and as soon as I was old enough, I moved to a different continent, a different country. And as an adult, I created a family there that had such challenging dynamics within it as well, that most of the time I was desperate, miserable, and depressed, and I really couldn't make sense as to why I was feeling this way. Things were the way they were. The harder I seemed to work at making them more perfect than perfect, the worse I seemed to feel. From the outside, things might have looked all kind of nice and shiny, but that wasn't the reality of how I felt. And over here on the business side of things, things looked pretty cool. I had great clients, I did really interesting jobs, things that ranged from being a fashion designer for really big brands to designing gardens or huge floral installations for La Scala Opera Theatre. cookbook author, TV format, TV personalities, even a gelato expert. That was probably the most fun of all those things. But every time I left one endeavor or one career or one area of expertise and moved to the next, I felt like a failure for what I was leaving, an impostor for where I was going. But even more than an impostor, I had this— feeling that every time I tried on that persona of garden designer, TV personality, fashion designer, none of them seemed to be that one thing, that purpose. Because I was looking for a purpose that had maybe a job title and one of those dreaded elevator pitches, and nothing seemed to fit. And the answer always came back, no, this isn't it. And so I felt, you know, depressed here, very depressed, very confused, and on the other side, equally at loss as to where things were going. And of course, there came the magic moment when these things came crashing together in the proverbial heap of tears. And I actually asked those 3 questions: Who am I? Why am I here? And what is my purpose? And I was asking a very dear friend of mine who's a gifted channel, and I received a message in 2 parts. Now, the first part was that life is not a highway where you get on at the on-ramp and drive straight till you get to the off-ramp. Now, described like that, purpose seems like a pretty stupid thing to be looking for. I had this idea that I'd find the one thing, and this one thing with capital letters, when I found it, my life would click together. I would have No doubts, everything, you know, the heavens would open, trumpets would sound, and I would ride merrily and very convincingly off to success and then into the sunset. So that for me was a big release. And then this was the second part, and this really, really shifted everything for me, and it was an invitation to consider life as a walk in the garden. And in a garden, you go and explore, let's say, some beautiful flowers over here, You take in the perfume, you notice the petals, the insects that are sort of flying around. And the garden designer in me would sort of notice the ornamental grasses and go and explore those and notice how even just the slightest breeze would set them dancing and how much beauty can be in something so simple and so humble as a blade of grass. And then as you walk further, you notice a fountain, you hear the sound of freshness, You can smell the water. So you go and discover, and you put your hands in the water, maybe play, and just take in all that coolness and possibly the sun dancing on the ripples. And you've been walking a while, and you've been exploring, and you notice that there's a stand of oak trees, and under those oak trees is a beautiful bench. So you go and you sit on that bench, and it gives you a beautiful view of everything that you've seen. So when I heard that, I literally felt like shackles were falling away from me because this search for purpose for this one thing was self-imposed. And it left me free to allow a different sense of what purpose really is emerge. And for me, anyways, my experience is that purpose is more a way of being than of doing. So what is purpose? So I started looking back at all the different careers I'd had, all the different jobs I'd done, and beneath the surface of all these little job descriptions and titles and projects, I could feel the undercurrent that linked them all. And there were words like mentor, visionary, designer. These are big words, these are expansive words. They're not linked to a technology, to a market sector, to a time in the economy. And so I began to understand that for everybody it's like that, and I started looking for the same thing within my clients. I had done that naturally, instinctively, but then I began to do it a little more conscientiously or a little more— with a little more awareness. And I realized that that's exactly what I've been doing for everybody, is really looking for who they are, what's their purpose, what is their place. And by that I mean, what is their place in the world? How do they show up in the world? And what is it that the world needs from them? And what do they need to offer the world? So that sounds kind of all airy-fairy, but that translates into positioning, physical products, market sectors, all kinds of businessy-style things. Then I started looking at what is business? What really is business? And to me, it's really become a form of self-expression. And a way of extending and amplifying our gifts into the world. And when you start seeing it like that, things really, really shift. You're not quite so market-driven and you start listening to yourself. Now, the Dalai Lama says that the purpose of life is to be happy. And so through logic, the purpose of your business is to make you happy. And you can only do that if you listen to yourself. And just to go back to the garden for a moment, I think most of you will know that a tree will show its trunk and the canopy of the tree, but what is underground is really the same size and dimension as what is above ground. And that's their root system. And what is our root system? What nourishes us and what's helped— what gives us stability? Because without that big circumference of roots, we're not going to be stable. An oak tree would fall over. And that's our spiritual development. So I had the immense good fortune to study with, and I still study with, some very, very special Tibetan masters. And as things started to shift on the meditation cushion and in my studies, of course they spill over into your everyday life. And then of course I let them spill over into my business. And the shifts were very interesting. And I took very sort of practical tools that are used in the Tibetan Buddhist system and applied them to my business. Because ultimately, even though spirituality can seem all kind of esoteric and ethereal and talking about things that we can't see, they're also— whatever system they are— are all means to help us live a better life today. To be happier now, to be more connected to ourselves and to others. And so this one practice that I'd like to share with you is something that has brought incredible results for myself and for my clients, and it's what they call offering or dedication. And so before you do anything— and that could be writing an email, it could be creating an offer, It can be coming up onto this stage to share your story, to take a moment and just say, may this be for the highest benefit of all those involved, directly and indirectly. You can make it as extensive as you like, but that's sort of like the short, the quick and dirty version of things. So directly is pretty obvious. That's you and that's me. And that's, that's you and me. Yeah, that's right. But the indirectly is a little less obvious. So indirectly could mean to you, or you would think, you know, the easy answer is people watching the replay, somebody who watches a transcription, or maybe you go home and share a story. But indirectly in the Buddhist view is the people who made these chairs you're sitting on, the people who made the camera that's recording this, the people who created the fiber optics that take Wi-Fi to your home, So that you can watch this on the computer that somebody made. So you're really sending out this intention for the benefit of all into the quantum field that really, if you stop to think about it, involves millions of people. And if nothing else, what really shifts is the fact that you go from your head— will they like this? Will they buy it? Will I screw up? Will I say the right thing? You know, will people like my offer? So-and-so is doing this— all that chatter. And you move into your heart, and the first person you meet there is yourself. And then that's where you connect with the world. So the powerful thing about intention and offering is that it immediately moves you to a more expansive view of what you're doing and not be caught up so much in your own little story. And the results are incredible. The best TV ratings ever for a program, people multiplying their business by 3x in a very short period of time. Because it's such a powerful tool, it really does move you from the smallness of our day-to-day considerations into something so much bigger. And so my invitation to you would be to embrace your business as part of your spiritual path. And to experiment and see what it would feel like to you if you were to leverage your spiritual ascension, your enlightenment, your journey to awakening for your business, to grow your business, and if you were to use your business as a spiritual tool on your path to enlightenment. Thank you. Woo!
