Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jorli. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Jorli, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

On the surface, I run four very different businesses, yet they all share a unifying thread: to support people to do what they love.

The idea is to follow the joy and the rest will take care of itself.

For my coworking space, this mission is quite literal. I provide a beautiful, peaceful environment for my customers to work out of — free of distractions, headaches and piles of laundry.

As as intuition coach, I teach my clients to tap into their bodies’ wisdom and listen to their inner voice to figure out which direction to go and to follow it through with aligned action.

At my content agency, I divide the work based on what people like to do best and only work with clients and contractors who I would choose to spend time with even if I wasn’t getting paid.

And my art and design work — well that’s pretty much a piece of my heart put into graphic form. You could draw a direct line from joy to what ends up on the screen or print or shirt.

Everyone has gifts. Using the unique combination of skills we have been born with as well as those acquired over the course of our lives serves not only the person doing the work, but the world at large. More joy equals more productivity, more prosperity and … even more joy. Rinse, repeat.

Jorli, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

As mentioned earlier, I work across a few industries, so it might be easier to zoom in on one aspect of my work — the one that has become a central focus for me in the last few years: intuition development.

Like many of us, I kind of stumbled across this work and nurtured it as a passion project for years before turning it into a business. Fifteen years ago, I attended my first women’s circle at a local yoga studio in Astoria, Queens, which re-opened a side of myself that had long been dormant. With a newborn at home and an intense corporate job taking up much of my days (as well as many evenings), I started learning about things like feminine energy and chakras — and leaning into my own inner knowing.

A former scientist, I decided to study intuition from a practical perspective. How, exactly, does someone “follow their gut” or “listen to their heart?” I wanted answers and usable tips. I started collecting them and in the process developed better control over these subtle senses. Along the way I also trained in adjacent disciplines like past-life regression and breathwork to further support myself and my clients.

What I’ve learned — without any knowledge this was where I would end up when I started this journey — is that intuition is an answer to overwhelm, chaos and misdirection. Living with an intuitive lens, it turns out, is a lot more pleasant and less stressful than living without it.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

The book Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus by Douglas Rushkoff had a profound effect on how I think about and manage my businesses. I’m going to paraphrase here a bit and oversimplify, but he points out that we have been mistakenly sold this belief that in business, there is one metric we should prioritize above all others: growth.

For corporations, this is certainly true — providing growth to shareholders quarter over quarter is the overarching goal — and arguably the root of many of their ills and damaging effects to the earth and the population at large. Natural business cycles don’t follow a straight line upwards. There are ebbs and flows. Ignoring this truth and artificially forcing growth at all costs is toxic. Certainly, growth is an important metric, but is it the metric?

When I read this book, I was at an inflection point with my content agency. Demand for our services was growing, and to meet that demand, I was bringing on new writers. Bringing on more clients and more writers meant that I was doing more administrative and managerial work, and spending less time writing. I love writing — it’s why I started the business in the first place — and I wanted to keep doing it.

So instead of optimizing for growth, I began to optimize for harmony, sustainability (in the sense of not depleting my energy, health and happiness) and profitability (it’s a business, after all) and this has served me very well. Some businesses are meant to be big, and others are meant to be sustainable. I consciously chose the latter.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

Hands down: referrals.

When you do great work, people notice. When you are kind and easy to work with, people notice. When you communicate honestly and clearly, people appreciate that and they want to work with you again — and tell their friends about you.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.jorlipena.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jorli
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jorli/
• Twitter: https://x.com/jorli

Image Credits

For the photo where I’m wearing a green shirt and the one I’m wearing a black shirt we shot by Josie Zetina (https://www.inkaoriginals.com/)

The photo where I’m leading a breathwork class was shot by Kelly Walsh (https://www.kelliewalshphotography.com/)

The rest of the photos I took.