Conscious Business with Mimi Young
The Jordan Lang Podcast: Episode 11
Welcome to Episode 11 of the Jordan Lang Podcast! We are continuing Season 2’s theme of Conscious Business with this conversation with Mimi Young.
Mimi Young is a Han Taiwanese Canadian spirit communicator and shamanic occultist, and the founder of Ceremonie, an esoteric brand focused on imparting practical ancient wisdom so clients can actively receive support from spirits, break negative patterns, and celebrate their path. Mimi works at the intersection of core shamanism, ancestral wisdom, dream work, chaos magick, and other Chinese mystic practices to communicate with the Unseen, offering education and mentorship, private readings, and skin and aura care.
Mimi has held space and led seekers and practitioners globally in her Mystery Mentorship program and retreats, as well as collaboratively with brands including goop, Almost 30, Spirit House Collective, and Tokyo Smoke. In the press and on podcasts, her work has been celebrated by Vogue, goop, Harper’s Bazaar, Refinery29, Hey Girl and more.
I hope you enjoy this conversation with Mimi Young on Conscious Business!
Can you share a bit about yourself and the work you do?
Mimi: Yeah, I'm a spirit communicator at the very core of what I do. There's so many different labels that may surface, such as Intuitive or Psychic, Medium, or even Shamanic Practitioner. But really what I do is I communicate with spirits, and I love also introducing people to spirits, if they have never really actively engaged with them before, and that could involve either through a reading but also through education and so through my business. My business is called Ceremonie. So through the business, I'm able to provide multiple offerings that really range in terms of level of depth and level of commitment needed or even range of topics. But at the core, really, it is about connecting with people with the Unseen, with that reality that perhaps we have been told is not real.
Jordan: I love that description, because I've had a reading with you, and I really feel like that totally embodies the reading that you provided for me, and that we chatted through so beautifully.
I would love to talk to you today about Conscious Business. So that is what this whole season is about, and I would love to know from your perspective…
What does Conscious Business mean to you?
Mimi: I think for me, it's less about what it looks on the outside, and, to be honest, when you do do the work on the inside, the outside will look different anyway. but when we focus on it from an optic perspective let's, say making sure that you know your campaign has enough BIPOC folks, or that there's enough language that sort of spell that you are informed about current social justice topics, I feel that that is a huge disservice to Conscious Business, and in fact, it perpetuates unconsciousness.
So for me, I think a big one is viewing our business as not something we own, but as a being. It is. And so what's that mean? It means when I “operate” or am doing business, I'm not making decisions, and operating it from the perspective that this is mine. When I see it as it is something that exists, as a way to steward energies and to serve the greater Universe - and I know that the word “Universe” can sound a bit cheesy at times, or even like lacking in depth, but truly the Cosmos - then we step away from colonial practices, where perhaps colonial practice, one big one that shows up is the idea of ownership.
And so for me, it's listening to the intelligence of my own business as its own distinct being and entity, me listening and following through with what it is that it's actually saying, and then of course me listening to all the other folks that are necessary in making sure this business continues, and in my case a lot of them are spirits. So it could be ancestral spirits. It could be other spirit beings that are interested in fulfilling the purpose of Ceremonie as a brand. And for me, even just by being a student of the brand myself it's helped me really open my eyes to what exactly Conscious Business practices mean.
Jordan: Absolutely, and I think there's such a in the “spiritual business” there's this disconnect. I want to say that it’s getting better, but I do feel like there's this disconnect where people want to say, “Oh, don't focus on what's happening in the world or what's going on out there, just focus on yourself and your business.” And, yeah, there is some element of that we can't control everything that happens outside, I do think it's important to also be aware of the things that are happening, so that we can be sensitive to those who are our clients, or within our network or that sort of thing. I mean that's humanity right? Being aware of others, and helping them. You can't separate business from that.
Mimi: No, we totally can’t, and this going back to what you had said earlier about some spiritual businesses. It's fueled by specific types of spiritual thought that perpetuates this, these components of, “Focus on yourself because you can't control anything else,” or other bypassing tools such as “There's only love at the end of the day” or “Pain is an illusion, so once they know that it's an illusion then they'll wake up.” And that to me is not being conscious. I think that is turning ones away from things that actually do matter, and to me consciousness and spirituality, if it doesn't have any actual fruitful benefit, then what exactly is it for? If it's not going to ease people, if it's not going to unite people, if it's not going to get people to really care for each other, and to own their actions then like it's the consciousness just becomes another - which of course it has - I was going to say that it becomes another buzzword, but it has. And now I actually cringe sometimes when people use the word “conscious” because I don't know what exactly they're trying to say.
Jordan: Absolutely. It has become that buzzword. And I feel like a lot of that is centered around whiteness and colonialism, and just stepping further and further away from listening to intuition, and letting our business, the spirit of our business, lead the way. We're like, “No, I have to do what so-and-so is doing.” or “How can I get to 6 figures really fast in 5 weeks?” That are all of these pressured sort of expectations that are just so prevalent within the Conscious Business world right now, because it is that buzz word.
I would love for you to share more specifically on the work you do, rewriting the business narrative to shift out of colonialism and toxic capitalism and into intuitive-based collaboration and responsibility.
Mimi: Continuing on that thread that I shared earlier, what we explore in the series that you're talking about called Evoking Your Business and Project. So it's not necessarily just for businesses it can be any project. It could be, for instance, we wanting to publish a book or launch a podcast in your case. I’m thinking about you offering that as a service for folks. So it doesn't have to be necessarily like income generating, but this idea that we still do approach just about everything from an ownership perspective, and then the other one, the focus still is on quantity vs. resonance. Or maybe another way of saying resonance is quality, and that example that you gave earlier is, you know, and we see this these coaches, and perhaps even spiritual teachers that are saying: Sign up for this. Learn how to be magnetic. Learn how to manifest and you too can make 6 figures in 6 weeks!
Full disclosure. I do not. I do not make 6 figures even in 6 months. I'll just be like and it's not to say that that's a shame thing. I'm just saying just in all honesty, I don't believe that's necessarily the way one can define success, and I think the other thing that people sometimes forget is, even if you do generate 6 figures in a relatively short amount of time, at least in Canada a lot of that is actually taxed. So I might make X amount, but after that person like after a certain baseline like I am paying an exorbitant amount of tax. So it's not really in my pocket to keep in addition to tax, typically you require a team to execute it. So there's a lot of whether it's employees or contractors, you do have a burn rate. So even if you are earning X amount in a specific period of time, that burn rate usually is also really high and so at the end, I just feel like it's a bit of an incomplete story.
In addition to that, people don't really know what the price of that is, like the cost of working a lot of times at a hyper-intensity, high alert, driving fast like we're in the fast lane. I see that even in the Spiritual or Conscious Business practices, where it's about like how many retreats I can lead over the summer? Or how much, how much, how much? What happens is it's then fueled by fear, it's fueled by disconnect, and you're still spending a lot after if you are even going to make that investment in healing after.
So I'll give you an example: I've made those same mistakes where I pushed myself past my limit, got burnt out, and then, all of a sudden, I was seeing a lot of health and wellness practitioners to make sure that I could step back into a resilient place because I lost my resilience. So fine I made all that money, but I spent it all too. I'm not quite sure if that spells wellness and vitality.
I think the in colonialistic, imperialistic, capitalistic construct. they don't care if you actually keep that money, because all they want is for you to continue to add to the economy, to the machine.
So they want you to make more, and they actually want you to spend more. It's not like making more and saving more, or making more and sharing more. It’s always about spending, and it's now no longer an expenditure of desire, but it's an expenditure of necessity because somehow you've told yourself you need a $12 latte every day to live, like as if that's even true.
Jordan: A big piece of that, too, I think, is comparison. I know for me I look and see, well so and so it's doing this, and so and so is doing that, and I want that! But then, I think, and I get grounded and I get tapped back into intuition and ask: do I really want that, though? Or is it just I see it and it looks pretty? You don't know what's going on behind the scenes to allow them to get to that place.
Mimi: Totally, and you know what happens? Susie, the person that you looked at on IG let's say, and say, “Wow! She's on this fabulous vacation.” We don't know what is on Susie's mind; she might be on that vacation as a response to seeing Jenny's feed. And so there's this, it's like you said, we think we are the only ones that are comparing ourselves to other people, but the fact is, we are in a cesspool where we're taught to all do that, and when we all do that, it's so easy to get lost.
Jordan: Absolutely it is. In the past, I've had people message me saying things like, “Oh, it looks like you've got it all together.” I feel like this was pre-Covid because I'm very transparent that I do not have my shit together. I think that that's a big a big part of it, too, is we've been taught like, Keep quiet, Don't talk about like the “negative” sides of things like the toxic positivity like, “Everything's great! Everything's awesome.” but in doing so we're just perpetuating these cycles of comparison, of burnout of just not sustainable ways of doing business or life, for that matter.
Do you have any thoughts on that?
Mimi: I love this topic in general. I think for me, and this really intersects with the actual work that I do. When I began to consciously and intentionally connect with spirits, and I say consciously and intentionally, because I have lot leading up to it, but it wasn't something that I actively wanted to pursue; they came to me, and and a lot of times it frightened me, or I I was confused by it. Part of it was because I grew up also in church, so there, there's that shame, that lingering shame. But essentially, when I decided to intentionally, actively, consciously, engaged in relating with spirits, one thing that really happened was…what’s astounding is how much I realize I recognize them, and how natural it was and also how much I felt recognized by them. And then, when you bring through such intimate recognition of a being that you considered the other, and also when you experience that other so to speak, recognizing you, you wind up really learning how to recognize yourself, and I feel like that's been the most helpful response. I'm not saying it's a solution, I'm just saying that it's a helpful response to what you had talked about with losing oneself, being burnt out, hyper performance, and when you recognize yourself, you're more comfortable going against the grain, and you're more comfortable doing things your way.
Jordan: I totally agree with that. I'll even share that with my kids, especially my oldest, who's 13 and in middle school, with peer pressure and all of that, just always reminding them like, know who you are. Be comfortable and confident in who you are, and doing so it doesn't matter what anybody else says. Obviously this is a different topic, but in sharing that with her I'm saying that to myself too; that's why with parenting you're often reparenting yourself. So I do think that that's such an important piece of it with being confident in who we are, and fully…I don't know self self-love yes, like fully accepting of who we are. It is easier to go against what society is telling us, what these systems that are put in place have been telling us. I love that you brought that up.
What are some ways that we can begin to rewrite the narrative for ourselves? With stepping away from colonialism and this toxic cycle that we often find ourselves in - what are some things that we can do in order to help us to get out of that?
Mimi: There's the components that we have already talked about, and the components I really want to emphasize is this idea of it's very much going to be something that is sustainable, and sincere if it's the inside-out rather than the outside-in. That, of course, such as what I talked about in terms of Conscious Business practices also, this idea of when you know yourself - which means then you're operating from the inside - then you can make better decisions for yourself. Inside-out.
I think the other thing that has been helpful at least for the folks in the Evoking Your Business and Project series is leaning into a practice called the Wu Xing. This practice essentially is looking at the 5 elements or the 5 phases within Chinese Esoteric work. It’s Taoist, so it then fuels what we today understand about traditional Chinese Medicine and acupuncture and Chinese Herbalism. Also within Chinese Mysticism, it hasn't just fueled health or medicine per se only, but it's actually fueled many other aspects of understanding trends socially, understanding weather patterns, understanding so much more.
I won't go into details, but one thing is, if we know our composition - and a lot of that is revealed through Chinese astrology - if we know what our composition is, then we can identify which key elements exist within us. These are going to be typically the topics, the areas, the soft skills that come very natural for us; and when we know what's within our compositional chart, then we also know what's not. And by knowing the what's not, it reveals to us areas that may be challenging for us, areas that we might want to avoid or procrastinate or just despise; it all depends on your personality. But when we know this, then we can learn how to work with these. We can learn how to work with the elements that we do have. We can also learn how to work with the elements that we don't have.
So knowing what is compositionally within your elements, or what elements are compositionally in your chart, then you know which elements you can work with and which elements you can learn from. Simultaneously much like eating seasonally. We know that when you eat seasonally, the produce and the fruits are generally at their peak in terms of taste and also in terms of nutrients, but also in price. They're typically more affordable when they're in season. So this is the same idea with the elements. When we know what our compositions are, we know how to work with the elements that we have, we know how to better work with the elements that we don't have, and how to learn from them, it just allows for you to run your business, and to run your life in general, according to the elements.
Jordan: There's no coincidences, I don't think. Everywhere I turn and every podcast that I'm attracted to, or every person that comes across my radar on IG who I don't normally follow, it's all about living seasonally and the elements. Everything that I've seen. All of it. So it's just this natural call back to stepping out of the hustle and grind getting back into cyclical living, and I think that that's just a beautiful way to approach life and to approach business. The two are connected, obviously. It’s just a beautiful way to to live in a sustainable, conscious way.
Mimi: I love how you pointed out that the personal is business and the business is personal. Really, we're taught to create separation between these. I actually wrote about this on IG where I talk about in my work meetings, which if you were a fly on the wall, you wouldn't necessarily think that I was having a work meeting because it would just be me in the room, but I'm having tea with spirits. I’m tuning in and I'm listening to what they want to bring up and whatever that is that's on the table.
“One of the things is that they actually ask about my personal life during business meetings, and it's because they believe, and they know that when the heart is attended to, then the business can thrive.” - Mimi Young
When something's happening in our personal lives it is very unnatural to say “it needs to stay separated.” We have been taught to think that that's healthy boundaries, or to think that that's a good thing, but I know if I need to take a day off, I don't even have to ask. It's already granted, because I guess on paper I work for myself, so I can do that; but honestly, it's really hard for me to do that. So I'll have the spirits say that. The spirits will say, “Hey, Mimi, we understand.” “Hey, if you don't take a day off we're gonna kick your ass,” and that's to me really amazing business to be part of.
Jordan: Yes, It’s so beautiful that you brought up the spirituality aspect of things, because we have similar backgrounds with our beliefs and our upbringings and everything in the Church.
So, though the thought of bringing spirituality into it for me is a relatively new concept, just because it is still something that I'm working to connect to my spirit guides and my support team and everything else so.
Is that something that you feel came to you pretty naturally? Was it something that you had to practice to get comfortable with, in including the spirits into your business?
Mimi: I would say yes to both. Yes, it always felt natural in the sense of, going back to what I had said earlier, it's like this recognition, like, Oh, this I know this deep deep down, and when I say recognition, I mean like re-cognition. It’s like, I know this and I'm revisiting it now. So it's going back to something very old, very ancient. And yet, because we've been groomed to operate a certain way, it sometimes can feel like I need to practice it again and again, because I don't necessarily always…I doubt. But of course we always do, or we do from time to time. It's also because the greater mechanism of things is still expecting hyper productivity. So sometimes it involves me having to educate and set the right boundaries around it. For instance, I have an auto reply. I think you do, too. That lets people know the span of time they can expect a reply. To me It felt really important to let people know that it might be up to 72 h before they hear back from me.
Is there anything that we didn't chat about that you feel is really important to bring to the conversation that you really feel called to share?
Mimi: I feel that Conscious Business, conscious conscious business, really at the even if it's not a not for profit, even if it's not you know a charity it is still need like to me I feel like you can't really call it conscious if you're not aware of who it is you're serving and Why, it is that you're here doing it. You know it's not just work or like something to do or a way to make income like it's it's so much more than that and for me, it's about that spirit connection or spirit communication and even the humans I befriend. That’s the other thing - I'm curious actually to know what your thoughts are around this - part of that separation thing we've been told that clients can't be friends and friends can't be clients. Is that true? I've broken that rule many times.
So going back to this idea of what I want to talk about is that…
“The service you offer, even if it is a product, it's still meant to bring value, and something that is of worthwhile energy for the community in some way.” - Mimi Young
To me it's when we understand that we can actually look beyond just the literal, hard facts around businesses, like the numerical things or the operational things. It's meant to be so much more than that.
Jordan: Yes, so beautiful. And to answer your question - I totally am friends with my clients! I love my clients so much. Even the clients that I no longer work with, I still consider them my friends. They're such an important part of my community, and my friend circles so totally agree with that.
Mimi: I feel that when we look at clients as clients, just clients, we are reinforcing the colonial perspective of disposability; like these are clients, because it's like a transactional relationship. So if they don't want to transact with us then they can go. That to me is totally the opposite of relationship and true connection. I don't want my clients to be disposable. They're not disposable. I miss them sometimes, but I think that's a good thing, and I think it helps. To me, if you really want to talk about service, and customer service, the service is there when your heart is there. Authentic service. So, because I care about my clients, and because I do view many of them as friends, I want to go above and beyond, because there's love now, and it’s not just about the fulfillment of whatever it is that they purchased or ordered or booked.
Jordan: Absolutely, and I think looking at people as disposable, as just this dismissive sort of thing, “well take it or leave it,” that's not the type of business I want to be a part of. I don't want to buy from somebody if I get that energy or that sort of feeling from them. So I think it goes both ways, too. I just think, like love all around, and respect. Even in my client contracts, I make it very clear that this is not a hierarchical-type of relationship. We're co-creating together. This is a collaborative experience because that's genuinely how I feel.
“I think in order to have a successful business for myself, and in order to see the results that my clients want to see, we have to co-create together and have this relationship that's mutually beneficial for both.” - Jordan Lang
Mimi: Yeah. Oh, I love that how you write that in into your agreements.
How can listeners connect with you? And do you have anything coming up that can help support them in what we've chosen about today?
Mimi: So my website is shopceremonie.com and then I'm also on Instagram the handle is also @shopceremonie. I am also on sub stack at shopceremonie.substack.com if you like to read.
In terms of upcoming offerings, I'm launching a multi-week series called Prayers and Devotions in Animism, and I deliberately wanted to include those two words, because those are two words - prayer and devotions - that are in need of being decolonized. In folk-based cultures and also animist cultures, these two practices have always existed, and it isn't necessarily something that was established in churches; they're not the only ones that own this or engage with this. So it's a series designed to really cultivate more of that being and being with, rather than doing. I feel that so many spiritual practices are focused on doing. That it is once again perpetuating burnout and perpetuating exhaustion, even from a spiritual perspective. So, this is really designed to help us learn how to be really quiet again. How to rest, how to tune in, how to be with, how to be recognized, and to recognize that you know the unseen and how to communicate in a way that is deeply relational. That kicks off April 3rd, and I do have a handful of partial scholarship spots in case there are folks out there that are in need of financial assistance. I do not require proof of financial hardship, you just simply have to email me. and to say, you're interested in this series and if a partial scholarship still available, and that's all I need from you.
There's also a two-part mini-series called Shamanic Journey to Soothe and Rest. Once again it's not meant to be a doing type of series. It's meant to be more of a being and receiving and that will be held on April 26th and 28th, just 2 days, that same week. It would be really great to see folks on there as well.
Jordan: Both of those sound absolutely amazing. Make sure you check those out. I'll put everything in the show notes for you to connect with Mimi, and just thank you again. So grateful for your time and your wisdom, and this conversation, and just so grateful to know you, Mimi.
Mimi: Thank you so much for having me, my dear friend and client, and really it's just YOU as a person.
To wrap things up…
Another big THANK YOU to Mimi for this conversation! If you enjoyed this episode, I would love to hear from you! You can email me or send me a message on Instagram. Sending you lots of love!
