We were lucky to catch up with Sarah Marshank recently and have shared our conversation below.

Sarah, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

I didn’t set out to disappear. I just needed a break.

At the time, I was teaching fifth grade at a private religious school while simultaneously completing my master’s degree in the History and Philosophy of Education. I was deeply committed to my career as an educator, to my students — whom I adored — while feeling increasingly disoriented in my inner life.

It came to a head when one of my students asked what I thought God would say in response to a story we were reading. I realized that while I could confidently teach that boy fractions — and even how to be kind — I couldn’t answer his question about God. Not for him. Not for myself. And that moment touched a deep, festering wound inside me.

Like many of my peers, I had followed the script: earn the degrees, find a meaningful job, do good in the world. But something in me felt off-center. It tugged at me, quietly but insistently. I couldn’t keep up with the pace of my life and tend to that inner call.

So I took a risk.

I gave myself a year. A sabbatical, I told people. A pause to rest, read, reflect. One year to catch my breath and recalibrate.
But that year didn’t end the way I expected.

Instead of returning to the classroom, I found myself stepping further away — from my career, from relationships that no longer fit, from outdated stories about God, from the world as I had known it. I didn’t call it a spiritual retreat at first. I didn’t call it anything. I just turned my attention to what felt like the most important endeavor: to know myself within the context of the Mystery of Life. It made sense to get that sorted before I continued making life choices that might not be ideal. I joined the long lineage of contemplatives, philosophers, mystics — and ordinary human beings — throughout history. I kept slowing down and listening, and somehow, the quiet kept showing me the way.

What followed was more than a decade of intentional solitude. I studied ancient religious texts and esoteric models. I dove into modern psychology, along with history, philosophy, anthropology, and evolutionary biology — searching for a framework that made sense and felt true in my bones. I practiced meditation, yoga, and other somatic disciplines. I walked alone in the forest, tended a small garden, and removed all the mirrors from the walls of my home: a simple two-bedroom house in rural Oregon, where I lived with one other fellow “monk.”

I fasted. I prayed. I wept. I watched my identity slowly unravel. I let it. I learned how to be still. How to listen. How to be with myself in the cosmos — without distraction or agenda.

And though it looked like I had left the world, it turns out I wasn’t retreating from life. I was learning how to meet it more honestly.

Eventually, something began to shift. I didn’t emerge all at once, but slowly, the inner stillness began to move me. Not as an impulse to teach — but simply to engage naturally in the world. To leave the monastery and return to the village.

In time, the educator in me felt inspired to share, to serve, to midwife others through their disorientation. It was as if the wisdom I had gathered in silence wanted to be in dialogue with the world.

Now, decades later, I find myself confident in how I would answer that young boy’s question about God. I’ve founded a boutique learning and mentoring business where I guide others through their own thresholds of change and questions about life’s meaning and purpose. Not to give them my answers — but to skillfully support them in finding theirs. Without having to spend a decade in retreat.

It all began with that one risky act: giving myself permission to step away. Not forever. Just long enough to remember who I was — and to hold fast to that knowing as the world continued trying to tell me who I should be.

Some pauses don’t bring us back to where we started. They bring us home.

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 Sarah Marshank, and I suppose you could say I’m in the business of helping people come home to themselves. Not through a quick fix or a branded identity, but through an honest, embodied inquiry into what it means to be human — right here, right now.

My path into this work was anything but conventional. Years ago, I left my career as an educator and entered a decade-long spiritual and philosophical retreat. I didn’t intend to start a business or create a method — I simply needed to answer life’s biggest questions for myself. Questions about God, identity, meaning, purpose, suffering. I studied ancient wisdom traditions, contemporary psychology, evolutionary science, and somatic practices. I let my inauthentic identity unravel. And over time, I began weaving together a way of being myself that felt coherent, truthful, and deeply alive.

That weaving eventually became Selfistry — an integrative framework for mastering the art of being human. Selfistry is not therapy, though it can be deeply healing. It’s not a religion, though it addresses our longing for sacred connection. It’s not coaching in the traditional sense, though it can catalyze profound transformation.

I work with individuals, groups, and organizations through private mentoring, retreats, courses, and speaking engagements. Some clients come to me in a moment of breakdown or transition — others are successful professionals seeking more meaning. All of them are asking, in some form: How do I live with integrity and presence in a world that’s increasingly complex, noisy, and disorienting?

This essential disorientation is the problem Selfistry helps address — not by massaging the symptoms with a quick fix, but by facing the fractured foundation beneath them, and rebuilding it. I guide people toward a more coherent and integrated way of being — one that honors their psychology, their spiritual longing, their intellect, their body, and their role in the larger human story.

What sets my work apart in the field of self-development is its radical synthesis. I’m not attached to one lineage, modality, or dogma. Selfistry draws from many disciplines, but it’s grounded in lived experience and designed to meet each person where they are. It’s a space for inquiry, for pausing, for remembering. It’s rigorous and spacious, philosophical and embodied, mystical and pragmatic.

I’m most touched by the fact that I didn’t create Selfistry out of ambition — but out of necessity. It emerged from years of solitary practice and contemplation, and now it lives as a vibrant offering that serves real people in real ways.

For anyone considering working with me, I’d want you to know: I don’t have your answers. But I know how to help you uncover them. And I want to help you. — not by escaping the world, but by learning how to stand more solidly inside it with clarity, compassion, and courage.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

When the business world talks about resilience, they often mean bouncing back from dramatic setbacks — a failed launch, a market crash, a product failure. But for me, resilience has looked more like staying — staying true, staying present, staying with something that I believe in even when the market doesn’t quite know what to do with it.

For the past decade, I’ve been building Selfistry in a cultural landscape that often feels allergic to depth and nuance. The personal growth industry is now a multi-billion dollar marketplace — crowded, noisy, algorithmically optimized. Everyone promises a quick fix, a ten-step plan, a better version of yourself. And here I am, offering something subtler, slower, and harder to package. Something that doesn’t promise overnight transformation, but invites people into the long, honest work of facing themselves.

From a business perspective, I’ve done “all the things.” I’ve hired business coaches and marketing consultants, taken the courses, followed the formulas. I’ve invested tens of thousands of dollars in efforts to scale Selfistry — and most of those attempts failed. Either the strategies didn’t resonate with me, or they simply didn’t work. At a certain point, I had to ask: is Selfistry not meant to scale in the traditional sense? Or is it simply not scalable at all?

I’ve had small infusions of capital along the way — moments of generous support that helped me get a course launched, a retreat filled, a website rebuilt. But there’s never been a steady engine of funding behind this work. I’ve often felt like I was treading water just to keep the signal alive in a world full of noise.

And yet, here I am. Still here. Still offering Selfistry. Still refining the work. Still adjusting the business model. Still meeting people, one by one, who tell me: this is what I’ve been looking for.

What’s kept me going is that Selfistry isn’t just a product I designed — it’s a path I lived. It’s a path I continue to live. It’s real. It has integrity. It’s not about chasing success in the marketplace. It’s about inviting people to ask the deeper questions: What are we really after? And what are we willing to let go of to discover it?

In that sense, the resilience required to keep Selfistry alive mirrors the very resilience Selfistry cultivates in others — the courage to slow down, to stay true, to not mistake visibility for value, or popularity for competency. Selfistry is not solely the work I do in the world. It is my way of life.

So success for me is not just financial. It’s existential. It’s spiritual. It’s knowing that I’ve remained in right relationship with my work — even when the marketplace hasn’t known quite what to do with it.

Training and knowledge matter of course, but beyond that what do you think matters most in terms of succeeding in your field?

In my field, success isn’t just about what you know — or how many degrees you have. Of course, training, tools, and expertise matter. But what’s most helpful is the living practice of integrating my knowledge and experience into an evolving expression of both the business model and myself, the business owner.

In the world of personal development — self-growth, mental wellness, whatever you want to call this complex (and over-commercialized) space — the willingness to live what we teach is paramount. To walk our talk. To be the kind of human our work claims to inspire.

Being a living example of what I “sell” is the success I seek. In addition to continuing my own study and practice, I seek out mentors, lean into collaboration, and listen for the quiet voices out there doing the deep work. I’m less interested in competing with others in my field, more interested in lifting each other up — amplifying one another’s contributions toward a better, more conscious world.

In other words … I keep doing the sort of learning and training I suggest to others. I pause. I reflect on the integrity of my offer — and the quality of my own life in relation to that offer. Is Selfistry aligned with my values? Am I living in alignment with the values I teach?

This kind of inquiry isn’t helpful as a one-time calibration. It must be an ongoing rhythm of reflection. A discipline. And I believe it’s something any business owner — in any industry — can benefit from.

We all need moments of reorientation:

What am I putting into the marketplace?
Does the world need more of what I’m putting out there?
How am I engaging in the process of running my business?
Could I bring more integrity to my leadership as a small business owner?

Why does this kind of ongoing reflection and re-orientation matter, especially now?

Because we’re living in a time of accelerating uncertainty and systemic change. These questions aren’t luxuries. They’re foundational. Paying attention to what’s happening in our local communities, our national culture, and our global ecology isn’t separate from running a business — it is part of running a business … at least if we care about building something meaningful and enduring.

This is why I find it essential to be in community with other solopreneurs — especially those outside my discipline. We need spaces where we can support each other not just in scaling or optimizing, but in pausing. In asking real questions about the impact of our work, the sustainability of our strategies, and the values behind our growth.

At this point, success in my field isn’t just about a strong brand or smart content. It’s about coherence — between my inner life and my outer work. Between what I offer and how I live. Between my personal truth and the truth of the times we’re living in.

Overall, we probably need less training or polished products in our fields. We need more integrated business owners and leaders. This, I believe, is the real currency of the future.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://selfistry.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/explore.selfistry/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/selfistry
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-marshank-selfistry/