Phil Powis ❤️⚡️ walked into his mid-30s running a consulting business that looked like success from every angle. Over $100,000 a month. A growing reputation. And underneath all of it, a body slowly breaking down in ways no doctor could explain.
By the time a golf ball-sized tumor appeared in his neck—with a 50/50 chance of cancer—Phil had spent years trying to outwork, outsmart, and outlast whatever was happening inside him. What the diagnosis gave him wasn’t a plan. It gave him a reckoning. And from that reckoning, everything changed: his diet, his relationships, his location, his relationship with alcohol, and eventually, the business he built alongside his partner Carolina Wilke.
That business, Sacred Business Flow, operates from a simple premise—your business challenges and your personal challenges are the same pattern showing up in different rooms.
In this conversation, Phil traces the long arc from sickness to clarity, shares where he’s landed on alcohol after 10 years without it, and talks about what he’s building next for people who hold something in their heart but haven’t yet found the courage to move toward it.
[01:00] Phil’s Early Relationship with Alcohol
Phil grew up in the South and started drinking around 15 or 16. He carried that through college, into corporate life in tech in Boston, and into his professional years—never feeling like it was a “problem” per se, but acknowledging there were periods where it was probably more than useful.
Alcohol was deeply tied to social identity—happy hours, networking, the culture around him. It wasn’t something he questioned; it was just part of how he connected with people.
The shift only came when his health started to deteriorate, and even then, alcohol was the last thing he was willing to let go of.
He eventually stopped drinking entirely—and wouldn’t drink again for over ten years.
Key Insight: “I was still so tied into this identity of going and how I was connecting with people and socializing and things like this, that it was hard to let go of.”
[07:00] When the Body Starts Sending Signals
In his late 20s, Phil went from feeling like the picture of perfect health to waking up exhausted, dealing with aches, headaches, and a body that no longer felt like his. Doctors couldn’t pin it down.
He worked with ancestral health nutritionist Mary Rudick, who had her own story of illness and recovery. One of the first things she asked him to do was cut out alcohol.
Phil made the other dietary and lifestyle changes more easily—fasting protocols, food restrictions—but alcohol took longer. The health motivation eventually won out.
He didn’t drink for over 10 years, a period that overlapped with his most serious health challenges, including the tumor.
Key Insight: “She’s like, if you’re on any sort of a healing path, this is not going to be helpful for that.”
[11:30] The Tumor, the Surgery, and the Real Recovery
Phil spent about a year and a half walking around with an undiagnosed tumor while going to the Mayo Clinic for biopsies that couldn’t confirm whether it was cancerous. He was living in a low-grade, constant fear.
He was simultaneously working with Carolina Wilke (who would later become his business partner) on nervous system regulation and emotional work, doing dietary protocols, and exploring whether he could heal without surgery.
He eventually had the tumor removed. What followed was a rapid, remarkable recovery—one he credits to the compounding effect of all the shifts he’d made.
After the surgery, he realized how much of what he’d been doing—even the good, purposeful work—had been driven by a fear that time was running out.
Key Insight: “I couldn’t, before that surgery, I couldn’t even do like one push-up...my nervous system was so fried.”
[17:00] Choosing to Drink Again—and What That Meant
After years of restriction during his illness, reclaiming his health meant slowly allowing things back in. Expanding his diet. Letting himself have birthday cake again. And, eventually, having his first beer.
For Phil, that first drink in Costa Rica with Carolina wasn’t a relapse or a capitulation—it was a celebratory claiming of his health. A marker of arrival.
He was clear that this is a deeply personal decision, and that he believes drinking can be a healthy social ritual when done responsibly and in moderation—for some people, in some seasons.
He joined the January Sober Creative Reset not from a place of necessity, but curiosity: what would it feel like to pause again, from a place of power rather than survival?
Key Insight: “For me in that moment, it was a very beautiful celebratory claiming of my health back again.”
[19:15] The January Reset: Choosing Clarity from Power, Not Fear
Phil came into the Reset asking a question most people in this community know well—who am I when I’m not using this thing to cope, connect, or coast?
He found the Reset to be a non-judgmental container where people were exploring their relationship with alcohol for very different reasons, and that felt important.
He’s been health-focused in his 40s in new ways—working toward physical goals he’s never had before—and part of that was wanting to examine alcohol’s role honestly.
His takeaway: it’s useful in any area of life to periodically question what’s running you and whether you’re conscious of it.
Key Insight: “I think this is a very helpful thing to do in different aspects, not even just with alcohol, but other aspects of your life—is always to be questioning the role that things are playing and just making sure that you’re not being governed by things in ways that you’re not conscious of.”
[23:25] Creativity, Mornings, and What Alcohol Actually Does to the Work
Phil is a 4 a.m. person. His best creative work—everything he writes for Substack, the ideas that flow without friction—happens in those early hours. That’s always been true, with or without alcohol in his life.
When he does drink, he’s made a clear personal rule: no creative work after that point. The ideas don’t fire the same way. He described feeling “blunted” and “not sharp.”
He’s never used alcohol as part of a creative process—unlike some of the documented history of writers and artists who did—because his most alive creative time is the morning, not the evening.
The correlation he’s observed: alcohol signals to his brain that the creative day is over.
Key Insight: “I feel that alcohol does stunt...even though I still drink, I do feel that it stunts my creative process.”
[30:20] What Phil Is Building: Sacred Business Flow and the New Community
Three years into Sacred Business Flow, Phil and Carolina have been working with people who want to bring something from their hearts into the world—usually a business expression—but keep hitting invisible resistance.
Their existing work requires people to have already made a committed decision to move. But they’ve seen a whole group of people who hold a vision but aren’t quite there yet.
They’re launching a new community called Radiant Flow—a lower-cost, widely accessible space built around embodiment practices: movement-based, yoga-inspired, breathwork-influenced work designed to build capacity for creative expression.
The distinction Phil draws: most regulated people have inner practices that maintain a baseline of safety. Radiant Flow is for expansion—for moving through discomfort, resistance, and into the actual creation process.
Phil is also moving to Rio de Janeiro, settling beachside, and curious about what a new environment will do for his own creative output.
Key Insight: “We’re helping people who hold something in their heart, a desire to create something...and maybe for a variety of reasons, they found it difficult to kind of get traction and move forward with that.”
Key Quotes
“After so many years of it being part of my identity, it was actually a bit confronting.” — Phil Powis
“I realized it wasn’t until after the fact that I realized how much I was carrying around this idea...I had this deeply ingrained kind of subconscious belief that I was effectively slowly dying.” — Phil Powis
“I think there is a way that drinking can be a healthy, social, celebratory ritual when done responsibly and when done in moderation.” — Phil Powis
“Drinking or no drinking, I would say that alcohol has never really been part of my creative process and I see it more as a hindrance.” — Phil Powis
“I think your reset really gave me a really beautiful opportunity just to reconnect with my own journey and to see how I felt.” — Phil Powis
Resources Mentioned
Sacred Business Flow — Phil and Carolina Wilke’s business and coaching framework (sacredbusinessflow.com)
Sacred Growth Club — their existing community on Substack
Radiant Flow — Phil and Carolina’s new embodiment-based community (launching at the time of this recording)
Mary Rudick — ancestral health nutritionist referenced in Phil’s health journey
Leo Babauta from Zen Habits — a creator Phil worked with during his consulting years
Mayo Clinic — where Phil received care and biopsies during his illness
Where to Find Phil
Phil Powis ❤️⚡️ is co-founder of Sacred Business Flow alongside Carolina Wilke. Find his writing on Substack as part of the Sacred Growth Club community. Their work sits at the intersection of business strategy and nervous system regulation—helping people move from idea to creation with both clarity and embodied readiness.
Thank You
A heartfelt thank you to Florence Acosta, Finn Tropy | StackContacts, Michele Gill, Noelle Richards, Cheri Seagraves, and many others who joined us live for this conversation, and to Phil Powis ❤️⚡️ for his generosity, honesty, and the kind of story-sharing that makes this community worth showing up for. Your presence and engagement make these conversations possible.
The April Reset Is Open — At Whatever Price Works for You
Phil came into the January Sober Creative Reset asking who he’d be if he chose to pause alcohol from a place of power, not necessity. He left with clarity.
Phil’s testimony from the reset:
I was part of Josh’s Sober Creative Reset in January of 2026. Josh created an incredibly supportive structure for allowing us all to examine our relationship with alcohol and the part we want it to play in our lives. In the end, I am not choosing to abstain from Alcohol fully, but the gift of this challenge was insights on when and why I choose to drink and how I want to approach it consciously going forward. This was a wonderful experience that I would recommend to anyone wanting to examine their relationship with alcohol.
This conversation is a reminder that your relationship with alcohol doesn’t have to fit a label. It just has to be something you’re honest about. The Reset gives you a structured, non-judgmental space to get honest—about what’s running you, what you’re protecting, and what might open up when you create some distance from it.
This April’s cohort is capped at 25 members, and the pricing is now pay-what-you-can. Because the barrier to examining your relationship with alcohol shouldn’t be a price point.
If this conversation resonated, would love to share this experience with you in April.
