If you’ve ever found yourself second-guessing your big ideas, shying away from the spotlight, or wondering if you’re really meant to “go big” as a spiritual entrepreneur, you’re not alone. I’ve walked that same uncertain path, grateful for every client and opportunity, but sometimes hesitant to fully step forward and share my message.

In Part 1 of this two-part podcast series, we’ll explore what it really means to “play small” as a faith-led entrepreneur.

I invite you to reflect on how your beliefs, fears, and unspoken desires might be limiting your impact. If you’ve ever questioned whether you’re sharing your message with the conviction and reach it deserves, this episode is for you.

• What “playing small” actually means (hint: it’s not about your revenue)
• How spiritual beliefs and upbringing can create invisible limits for spiritual entrepreneurs
• The emotional cost of holding back your voice and visibility as a spiritual entrepreneur
• Why reframing desire helps entrepreneurs step into purpose without guilt
• Simple reflection questions to help you spot where you’re minimizing your message

• Playing small isn’t about your business’s size—it’s about showing up consistently and intentionally.
• Visibility isn’t about ego—it’s about impact and service for those we’re called to lead.
• Reframing desire helps shift your mindset from guilt to alignment.

• “Growth isn’t about doing more. It’s about becoming the person you were created to be.”
• “More visibility simply means more people will be served.”
• “When you stop minimizing what you know, what you feel, and what you’re here to say, you don’t just grow, you transform, and you also help others transform.”

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 Visit Community.MarisaShadrick.com to learn more.

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Marisa Shadrick [00:00:00]:Let me ask you a question. Are you playing it small as a spiritual entrepreneur? Now when I say playing it small, I don’t mean the size of your business or the revenue that you bring. I mean, are you showing up fully? In this episode, we’re going to examine whether or not you’re playing small or whether you’re reclaiming your space to be able to share the message your audience needs to hear. Stay tuned. Hello. Hello. And welcome to the Amplify Your Authority podcast. I’m Marissa Shadrach, your host.

Marisa Shadrick [00:00:33]:I am an AI marketing strategist and certified copywriter. But today, we have a first of a two part series on this podcast, and it’s really about our position as spiritual entrepreneurs. And the reason why I chose this topic, I reviewed some analytics in the podcast, and I saw out of the top 10 podcasts, the ones where I shared a lot about mindset, overcoming some of the the limiting beliefs that we often face, those were the ones that seemed to resonate with you. So this two part series is dedicated to you, and we’re gonna answer the question whether you’re playing it small or if you’re fully visible sharing your message, your mission without guilt, without fear, and without apology. So let’s get started. So first of all, if you’re feeling a little bit stuck, if you’re feeling a little stagnant, or something is just off and you’re not seeing the growth that you’re expecting, it might not be that you’re doing anything wrong. It might be something else that I know I struggled with for a long time, and that’s just being comfortable being visible. We have to be visible so people can hear our message, our point of view, so that we can promote our products and services.

Marisa Shadrick [00:01:46]:And sometimes as spiritual entrepreneurs, there’s things we need to rewire because we have some limiting beliefs that can spill into our business. And again, when I mean playing small, I don’t mean about revenue or the size of your business. I’m talking about how you show up. If you’re taking advantage of opportunities where you can be visible, if you’re engaging in speaking opportunities, those type of things that sometimes we try to avoid because we don’t like to be visible. So in this podcast episode, it’s not like I’m going to go over something new. It’s really gonna serve as a reminder, especially as spiritual entrepreneurs. We know that we need to overcome fear. That’s a given, but it’s often easier said than done.

Marisa Shadrick [00:02:30]:When we start an online business, all of a sudden, fears that we never thought we had appear, and we have to overcome that. And it takes time. Often, it feels very risky to step out and give an opinion or give a talk because we know people are listening and people are judging, and they really are. People are always judging. Maybe not intentionally, but they’re forming an opinion about what you’re saying. They’re either accepting or rejecting or questioning. It’s just human nature. And so we have to realize that we even do it.

Marisa Shadrick [00:03:01]:We’re even critiquing things and listening to things and trying to compare it to some beliefs that we already have or to change our point of view by the evidence that’s given. And it’s not always easy to admit that we judge, and we do. And we don’t do it in a way to condemn people. We’re assessing. We’re evaluating. We’re trying to see what portion of what we’re listening to or watching is something that we can adopt or something that perhaps we still don’t understand and we need more information or something that maybe shifts our point of view. So let’s redefine playing small so we’re all on the same page. Again, it’s not about revenue.

Marisa Shadrick [00:03:39]:It’s not about followers. It’s not even about the niche you’ve chosen. It’s about whether or not you’re fully expressing the message, the vision, the purpose, the reason why you created your business. Are you showing up, and do you have a conviction to share this with others because you know it would help them? It’s whether or not you’re creating filters and you’re limiting yourself, or you’re hesitating or holding back. That’s what I mean about playing small. So I’m gonna cover three simple points that you can contemplate and some reflection questions that you can consider. So number one is the real cost of playing small. First of all, the message is not going to reach the people who really need it, who need to hear it.

Marisa Shadrick [00:04:20]:They’re not going to be able to embrace the hope that it brings. The impact is minimized even when the effort is maximized. It’s going to reach only so far because people do business with people, not necessarily with a brand or a name or a logo for that matter. You stay in the safe loop, repeating the same things you did yesterday, a month ago, a year ago, never really challenging the edge, never really going beyond that. This was something that I struggled with. I wanted to stay within a certain parameter and not exceed that because that meant I had to be more vulnerable. It’s going to limit you from growing and being the person that you were meant to be. I remember a prayer that I had years ago, and I had it as a signature on the bottom of my email.

Marisa Shadrick [00:05:06]:God, change me today so I can become the person you intended tomorrow. It takes change. It takes transforming. It takes facing those fears to be able to come become that person that you were intended to be. And so when we play small, the emotional result is stagnation. We stay the same and we don’t grow. And we were meant to grow. We were meant to live an abundant life.

Marisa Shadrick [00:05:33]:And this can make us feel invisible, and it has kind of a slippery slope to that. Number two is common reasons that we hold back. Now I can’t presume why this is the case for you if you struggle to be more visible, But I can share what were some of the struggles for me. And part of it was my upbringing and also my spiritual upbringing. Oftentimes I felt that in order to be humble, I needed to be quiet. I needed to just stay grateful, I needed to not talk about myself, and there were certain things that were false beliefs about what humility really was. And so a lot of this had an effect on me as far as how I would show up. I thought if I showed up and I talked about what I can do or how I can help people, I was being boastful.

Marisa Shadrick [00:06:26]:And so that would create more tension for the daily things I needed to do. And also, I remember being told to always be content and not really want for more. And that was something that kind of messed with my head too, because I thought for people that are ambitious, for people that are competitive, for people that are trailblazers, this can be crippling. Right? But I remember, you know, thinking, well, I need to be content, and it was all the way I interpreted it. It wasn’t that people were telling me not to excel. It was the way I perceived it. And so that could be a limiting belief too. But part of my upbringing meant that if you were ambitious, or if you talked about yourself, or if you, you know, wanted to earn revenue, or you were had certain goals that it was greedy, or it was too ambitious, and that you should be content.

Marisa Shadrick [00:07:20]:I know for me also, fear of judgment was also a big thing, that if I started sharing my opinions, maybe someone would judge me, not like me, not, say things behind my back. So this was always something that I had feared, or that I would be too much, or not enough, or too young, or too old, all of those things that many people struggle with. I struggle with the same thing too. So that causes us to hold back. And the other was also the fear of success. What if this did grow? How would I handle it? Trying to see the future, which none of us can do, and trying to create all these scenarios, you know, if it goes wrong, if it goes well, if this happens, if that happens, and I I would just, you know, create havoc for myself. And all of those things can cause us to hold back and not take that step forward. And so these were some of the struggles that I went through, but lots of people go through different, different struggles for different reasons.

Marisa Shadrick [00:08:17]:And it causes them to hold back and not really step forward and play it small and play it safe. So the third point I wanna make is reframing desire. I truly believe now that when we have a desire, it’s truly God given. When we have a desire to help, to serve, to see change, to, contribute something to this world, that is something that’s selfless. And I think that desire needs to be nurtured. And for everyone, it could be something different. But wanting more is a signal of alignment. It isn’t really a signal of greed.

Marisa Shadrick [00:08:59]:It’s really aligning yourself to your purpose and the goals and the vision that you have for your life. So wanting more is more about alignment, not about ego. Also, more visibility simply means more people will be served. When you show up more, it’s amazing the impact of one person, what it could have for another person. So being more visible means more people you can serve. Now some of those people may never be a client. They may just be people that hear something that you produced on social media, or it could be something that they read. Right? Maybe they’ll never become a client.

Marisa Shadrick [00:09:38]:That doesn’t mean that your message didn’t have impact and value. The other is reframing desire, more income. There’s nothing wrong with money and desiring more income. In fact, if we have more, we can give more. There’s more freedom. There’s more generosity. And you can even create a larger reach because you have resources to be able to do some type of outbound or inbound marketing. So you can do more.

Marisa Shadrick [00:10:06]:So there’s nothing wrong with more income either. More confidence. Right? Reframing desire. Confidence is not being boastful. And so, if you have a desire to be more confident, that means there’s gonna be more transformation for others. And again, confidence is not pride. One of the things that I realized that I when I tried to just stay in the shadows of everything, and I was trying to, in my mind, stay humble, I was really prideful then, because I was thinking of myself so much. I was thinking about what others would would say.

Marisa Shadrick [00:10:44]:I was thinking about how it would look. I was thinking about the pros and cons. Everything was so focused toward me, and that is pride. When we think about ourselves more than others, it’s really a sign of pride. So all of those things, even though when I was trying to hide behind the shadows, I was still being prideful. And sometimes we think people that are outspoken are prideful, and they’re not. Maybe they’re very, very humble realizing the gifts that God has given them, and they’re using those gifts in all humility. And so we can get messed up with that as well.

Marisa Shadrick [00:11:17]:But I realized at that point that I was being very prideful. And so in order to overcome that fear, I had to reframe things and stop thinking about myself, start thinking about others, the impact I could have on others, and that helped me to step forward and not play it small, at least in the way I’ve defined it in this podcast. To show up more and be more for others. So here are some reflection questions that you can ask yourself just to see and test. So this is a fill in the blank. If I believed my desire was a calling, I’d stop denying blank and begin honoring blank. So I’ll say it again, and I’ll give you some examples so you can fill in the blanks. If I believed my desire was a calling, I’d stop denying blank and begin honoring blank.

Marisa Shadrick [00:12:12]:Now let me give you some examples. I’d stop denying how much I want to lead and begin honoring my ability to guide others with clarity and heart. Here’s another one. I’d stop denying that I want to earn well and begin honoring the value my work truly brings. Here’s another. I’d stop denying my fear of judgment and begin honoring the message that’s inside of me. Or I’d stop denying my dream of creating a full time practice and begin honoring the steps it takes to build it. And the last one, I’d stop denying that my old identity no longer fits and begin honoring the version of me that’s emerging.

Marisa Shadrick [00:13:03]:We’re all transforming. We’re all growing. I don’t care how old you are. We’re all growing. There’s always room to learn and to grow and to excel. So you can ask yourselves these questions. So again, the question to fill in the blanks, if I believed my desire was a calling, I’d stop denying blank and begin honoring blank. So I wanna leave you with this thought.

Marisa Shadrick [00:13:25]:Growth isn’t about doing more. It’s about becoming the person you were created to be. When you stop minimizing what you know, what you feel, and what you’re here to say, you don’t just grow, you transform, and you also help others transform. You tell your story so that others can live their story. This isn’t about chasing validation. It’s about becoming fully available to the people you are meant to serve. So let’s stop rehearsing the small version of yourself because the work you are here to do deserves all of you. So if you enjoyed this podcast episode, I’d love it if you’d leave a rating and review.

Marisa Shadrick [00:14:11]:And remember, this is part one of a two part series, and we’re gonna continue the conversation of visibility and not playing it small. And we’re gonna talk about being visible via video or stage. So I hope you join me for that one. And again, if you enjoyed this episode, please leave a rating and review. I’d really appreciate it. Until next time, take care.