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

Alright, George thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – walk us through the story?

Taking a leap of faith, whether leaving your job to go all in on your dream or something else, is scary. But there’s a reason it’s called a leap of faith, not a leap of certainty. In other words, you aren’t going to know how it’s all going to turn out beforehand.

Instead, taking a leap of faith requires trusting that the only way the net appears is by leaping and that no matter what happens, it will all work out for the best. In real-time, when my wife, Plant-Based Chef Sydney Ione, and I quit our jobs to go all in on hosting Meditation and Breathwork retreats for a living, that decision seemed like the riskiest decision we could make. However, now that multiple years have passed since that decision, we can see that not taking the leap when we did would have been the more risky decision. If we had been faithful to the “fear” voice within us, today we would be nowhere close to where we are.

For years, we worked full-time at an organic grocery store. At the same time, I also taught meditation full-time, and we would take time off to host our retreats with the third member of our wellness collective, Nourish Mindful Events, Breathwork healer Jillian L Hannah. For a while, this job was the venture capitalist for our dream job. It allowed us to invest our earnings into activities related to our genuine passion and education to help us become better at our craft. This day job served a bigger purpose for us, which was that it allowed us to focus on what we were passionate about without having to worry about our finances as much while we built our business.

Eventually, the time came when we were ready to go all in on our passion and fully bloom. And we discovered that when this time did come, it was much easier to take the leap because we had already made a bunch of mini leaps of faith to get us to that point. You have to practice taking the leap of faith, and we had been building up to taking the giant leap of faith to quit our job and go all in on our business.

Building up to following our heart required taking “mini leaps” everyday in our business. For us, this meant taking the risk of booking our first retreat across the county, even when we had never done this before and didn’t know if anyone would sign up. It meant investing in different trainings that were a significant financial investment and much more. For someone else, these “mini leaps” could be something different, but you have to practice with the little things.

It’s like running a marathon; you can’t just go out on the day of a marathon and start running, or you’ll end up hurting yourself. First, you have to train, and then once you get used to running 5, 10, 15, 20, and then 25 miles, running a marathon will not seem as crazy. It will still be scary to take the big leap when the time comes, but everything you want is on the other side of your comfort zone, and leaping is the only way the net appears. However, if we weren’t intentional about making a lifestyle out of taking mini leaps of faith, it wouldn’t have been as easy to take the giant leap when our intuition told us it was time to quit our job and go all in on our dream.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Geoge S Peterson is an accomplished meditation teacher, addiction recovery expert, inspirational speaker, and workshop leader. He is also the co-founder of Nourish Mindful Events, a company that hosts retreats and pop-ups, providing a space for people to nourish their mind, body, and soul. My parents divorced because of my father’s alcoholism when I was around three or four. My mother was a spiritual seeker from as far back as I can recall. My journey began with my mother talking to me as a kid about meditation and spirituality. However, in my early teens, I started looking for self-worth and happiness from the outer world. This search outside myself for happiness led me to get addicted to heroin at age 15. By the time I was 18 years old, I was a full-blown IV drug user living in what felt like a hopeless place. On August 7, 2011, I retook one sip of a drink after swearing I would never drink or use drugs again for what felt like the hundredth million time. Dead on the inside, sick and tired of being sick and tired, I knew I would keep going the way I was going and die, or I could be willing to go to any length to stay sober. That was the day I got sober.

That decision and willingness to do whatever it took to stay sober changed my life. Soon after that decision, I learned to meditate and have since that day devoted my life to practicing and teaching meditation. One day at a time I continued to prioritize meditation, and today I teach the inner work that has allowed me to manifest a life beyond what I could have ever imagined.

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

Sydney and I met in 2011 while working together in Boston. Through spending more time together, we both realized that we wanted more out of life, and in 2014 we decided to hit the road and move to San Diego. Through that experience we were able to work on our crafts and see where our services could be of best use. This led us to the original concept of Nourish: a company that provides the tools & community for people to prioritize their own self-care.

While living in California, we quickly realized that the wellness concept we were creating was highly prevalent on the West Coast but not as established where we both grew up in New England. Even though we loved the vibrant energy of Southern California— we decided to move back and establish Nourish Mindful Events in New England.

Shortly after we moved back east, we met Breathwork Healer Jillian L Hannah at a mutual friend’s wedding. Our friends intentionally sat us at the same table because they knew we would hit it off. No coincidences! From the first conversation at that table, we knew that we wanted to work together. At that time Jillian had two small children and was working part-time as a yoga instructor. I asked her, “Do you want to co-host workshops together?” And she said, “Sure!” And from that point on, we began a deep friendship and work partnership.

In the early part of 2018, we began hosting pop-up events where we showcased some of our favorite self-care practices during a three-hour period— this allowed people to see firsthand the effects of meditation, yoga, and healthy eating on their bodies and minds.

Eventually, the three of us knew we wanted to teach on a deeper level, so we began hosting live-in retreats throughout the country. Through these retreats, our guests learn how to become daily meditators, practice yoga and breathwork, explore some unique parts of this country, and make some deep connections with like-minded people.

By working together these past five years, we have all come to realize that we have a sacred contract with each other to share this work collectively. We intentionally take time to nourish our relationships as business partners by each prioritizing our inner work. We have woven our lives together through this work and are humbled to say that we just completed our 18th retreat and can’t wait to do it again in 2024!

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

People often think that to be successful, they need to do what other successful people have done. And while it can be helpful to find other people who can help you “see to believe” that the things you want in your life are possible. One of the most essential steps to creating sustainable success is being authentic.

Real success is not actually success if you achieve it without being authentic. It might take you longer to become successful if you take the time to discover your most authentic self first, but it will feel much more fulfilling when you do become successful.

Because we took the time to do the work to get back to who we are on a soul level – our authentic self, so many of our clients at Nourish Mindful Events say they feel we are all so genuine.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.nourishmindfulevents.com/
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/georgespeterson_meditation https://instagram.com/nourish.mindfulevents
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nourish.mindfulevents
• Other: https://www.georgespeterson.com/globalshiftpodcast https://www.nourishmindfulevents.com/italy-retreat