We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Erin Patten. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Erin below.

Erin, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Risking taking is a huge part of most people’s story but too often society overlooks those risks and only focuses on where you are today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – it could be a big risk or a small one – but walk us through the backstory.

In the fall of 2025, I launched a plant-based beauty brand called Ra Beauty. Named after the Egyptian sun god — the source of light and creation — this brand is an extension of everything I teach as a metaphysical mentor and everything I believe about caring for yourself from the inside out. It’s luxurious, it’s intentional, and it’s deeply personal to me. But to understand the risk I took in launching it, you have to understand what was happening in my life at the same time.

I’m a Harvard-educated entrepreneur. I run The MetaBusiness World, where I mentor women in building businesses that are aligned with their highest purpose. I host a podcast. I speak on stages. From the outside, it probably looked like I had it together. But behind the scenes, 2025 was one of the hardest years of my life. I was in the middle of a custody battle over my son, Harleaux. I was caregiving for my mother, who has Lewy body dementia. And I was pouring everything I had into bringing Ra Beauty to life.

Then came the betrayal.

I trusted someone close to me — a family friend — to help execute the launch event for Ra Beauty. I would have vouched for this person with my life. And they took the money and didn’t deliver. I was scammed. Not by a stranger. By someone I loved.
I’m grieving a custody decision that devastated me. I’m managing my mother’s care. I’ve just been financially betrayed by someone in my inner circle. And I’m sitting with a beauty brand that still isn’t launched. Most people would have folded. Honestly? There were moments I wanted to.

The risk was this. . . I launched anyway.

Not because I had healed. Not because the money situation was resolved. Not because the custody decision didn’t still wake me up at night. I launched because I had made a commitment to myself. I launched because my son is watching me, even from a distance, and I wanted him to see his mother rise. I launched because the dream doesn’t wait for perfect conditions — and neither do I.

What that season taught me, and what I now teach every woman I mentor is there’s a difference between refinement and reduction. Life will try to reduce you. Pain will try to shrink you. Betrayal will try to make you close your heart and play small. But refinement is different. Refinement is what happens when you take everything that tried to break you and you let it sharpen you instead.

Ra Beauty is live today. The brand is growing. But more than that — I am growing. I didn’t launch a beauty brand in spite of my pain. I launched it through my pain. And that’s the kind of power no one can take from you.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’m Erin Patten — metaphysical mentor, keynote speaker, Harvard-educated entrepreneur, podcast host, and founder of The MetaBusiness World and Ra Beauty. I hold dual Master’s degrees from Harvard Business School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and I’ve spent over fifteen years in corporate leadership and entrepreneurship across fashion and beauty, retail, philanthropy, and technology. Before any of that, I graduated from UT Austin with a BBA in Marketing and a BA in Plan II Honors, and I started my career styling at Bergdorf Goodman and Lord & Taylor in New York City. So I’ve lived in a lot of worlds.

But here’s the part that actually matters – my journey into metaphysics didn’t come from curiosity. It came from crisis. I lost my father unexpectedly, and shortly after, my best friend was murdered. A few months later, my mother attempted suicide. I was in the kind of grief that doesn’t have a roadmap. And that season of loss cracked me open in a way that led me to study metaphysical psychology at the University of Kemetian Sciences, become a certified yoga instructor, a Tai Chi master, an energy healer, and a meditation and sound bowl facilitator. I didn’t find metaphysics — it found me when nothing else could reach me.

Today, through The MetaBusiness World, I mentor high-achieving women entrepreneurs who have done the thing. They’ve built the business, made the money, earned the title — and they’re exhausted. They’ve been operating in masculine energy for so long that success feels like survival instead of fulfillment. I help them shift from hustle to flow, from achievement to alignment, from doing more to becoming more. I blend rigorous business strategy with ancient metaphysical practices because I believe the most powerful women in the world shouldn’t have to choose between their ambition and their peace.

My signature offering is the Divine Alignment Mentorship — a five-month, one-on-one deep dive for women who are ready to reclaim their feminine power without sacrificing their success. I also offer the Frequency Shift Intensive, a seven-week one-on-one program for entrepreneurs seeking energetic recalibration and clarity on their next move. And the Sol Full Accelerator, a seven-week group experience that demolishes the emotional, spiritual, and professional roadblocks standing between a woman and her next level. I host The MetaBusiness Millennial podcast, where I have raw, unscripted conversations about feminine leadership, spiritual growth, and what it actually looks like to build a life you don’t need a vacation from. I also speak on stages about organizational healing, metaphysical leadership, and the future of feminine success.

Beyond the mentorship work, I recently launched Ra Beauty — a plant-based hair care and skincare line rooted in the same holistic wellness philosophy I teach. Named after the Egyptian sun god, Ra Beauty is about radiance from the inside out. It’s luxurious, it’s intentional, and it’s an extension of my belief that how you care for yourself on the outside reflects how you honor yourself within.

I’m also a full-time caregiver for my mother, who has Lewy body dementia, and a proud mama to my son, Harleaux. Those roles shape everything I do. They keep me honest. They keep me grounded. And they remind me daily that success without presence isn’t success at all.

What I’m most proud of is that I didn’t build any of this from a place of having it all figured out. I built it from the breaking point. From grief, from betrayal, from seasons that should have taken me out. And if there’s one thing I want anyone reading this to know, it’s that you don’t have to have it together to start building something extraordinary. You just have to be willing to trust what’s inside you more than what’s happening around you.

You can find me at @iamerinpatten and at themetabusiness.world.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I had to unlearn that hard work is the answer to everything.

I know that sounds almost blasphemous coming from a woman with two Harvard degrees and over fifteen years in corporate America. I was raised on the gospel of grind. Do more. Push harder. Outwork everyone in the room. And for a long time, that strategy worked — or at least it looked like it was working. I climbed the ladder. I held executive positions. I checked every box that was supposed to guarantee security and significance.

But nobody told me you can hustle your way to the top and still feel completely empty when you get there. You can earn the titles and the income and the recognition and still not recognize yourself.

The unlearning started when my world fell apart. I lost my father unexpectedly. Shortly after, my best friend was murdered. And a few months later, my mother attempted suicide. All of this happened in rapid succession, and I was still trying to perform. Still trying to be strong. Still trying to outwork the grief because that’s the only tool I had — just push through it.

It didn’t work. You can’t outwork grief. You can’t outperform heartbreak. And you definitely can’t hustle your way into healing.
That season broke the pattern for me. I started studying metaphysical psychology. I became a yoga instructor, a Tai Chi master, an energy healer. Not because I was looking for a career change, but because I was looking for a way to survive. And what I found in that stillness was something I had never been taught in any boardroom or classroom. I learned that the most powerful thing a woman can do is stop forcing and start flowing.

The lesson I had to unlearn was that masculine energy — the pushing, the controlling, the white-knuckling — was the only path to success. What I’ve learned since, and what I now teach, is that feminine energy is not the absence of power. It’s a different kind of power. It’s magnetic instead of forceful. It’s strategic instead of scattered. It’s sustainable instead of depleting.

Every woman I work with has some version of this same unlearning to do. She’s been told that rest is laziness. That softness is weakness. That if she’s not exhausted, she’s not working hard enough. And I’m here to tell her — and anyone reading this — that the hustle got you here, but it won’t get you where you actually want to go. Flow will. Alignment will. Trusting yourself more than your to-do list will.

That’s the lesson. And I’m still living it every day.

Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.

It absolutely did — but not in the neat, linear way people usually tell these stories.

I graduated from UT Austin in 2007 with a BBA in Marketing and a BA in Plan II Honors, and I went straight to New York City. I worked at Bergdorf Goodman and Lord & Taylor in fashion styling and e-commerce marketing. That was my first real introduction to luxury, to curation, to the idea that how you present something matters as much as what it is. I loved it. But I also knew I wanted more — more impact, more depth, more purpose behind the work.

So I went to Harvard. I earned dual Master’s degrees from Harvard Business School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government in 2015. After that, I worked at the Kresge Foundation as a Special Assistant to the CEO, focusing on expanding opportunities for low-income communities in Detroit and New Orleans. I also served as acting Director of Ponyride Detroit, a nonprofit supporting creative and social entrepreneurs. This work fed my soul, but the corporate structure still felt like a container that wasn’t quite shaped for the way I think and lead.

Meanwhile — and this is where the “side hustle” piece starts — I had always been deeply drawn to wellness and holistic living. In 2017, I launched a plant-based hair product collection that ended up in Macy’s stores with incredible reviews. That was the first sign that my personal philosophy could become a business. But it was still a side project alongside corporate work.

Then everything shifted. I lost my father. My best friend was murdered. My mother attempted suicide. All within months of each other. And the grief sent me on a journey I never planned — into metaphysical psychology at the University of Kemetian Sciences, into yoga instruction, into Tai Chi mastery, into energy healing. I wasn’t building a business. I was trying to survive. But in the process of healing myself, I discovered that the tools I was learning — energy work, feminine leadership, spiritual alignment combined with strategic thinking — were exactly what other high-achieving women were starving for.

That’s when the side hustle became the mission. I founded The MetaBusiness World, where I now mentor women entrepreneurs full time. The key milestones along the way include being appointed as the first woman and person of color to chair the McCombs BBA Alumni Advisory Board in 2016. Being invited back to UT Austin as the distinguished alumni commencement speaker in 2021. Building out my signature Divine Alignment Mentorship — a five-month, high-touch one-on-one program. Launching The MetaBusiness Millennial podcast, which has become a space for raw, unscripted conversations about what it actually means to build a business and a life in alignment. And most recently, launching Ra Beauty — a plant-based beauty brand that brings my holistic wellness philosophy into a product line.

The through-line of all of it is I never set out to build a metaphysical business. Life built me into the person who needed to create one. Every corporate role, every loss, every season of grief and rebuilding was preparation for the work I do now. If you’re reading this and you have a side hustle that keeps pulling at you — something that feels more like a calling than a project — pay attention to that. It might not make sense on your résumé yet. But the things that won’t leave you alone are usually the things you’re supposed to build your life around.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.erinpatten.com
• Instagram: @iamerinpatten
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/erin.patten.5/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/iamerinpatten/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@iamerinpatten/