Women Entrepreneurs, NOW is the Time For Change

I launched my business as holistic business mentor to make waves. I wanted to empower my clients to empower their clients to live happier, healthier lives using the principles of conscious lifestyle. And I’ve dedicated the last 15 years of my life to that mission.

I believe in change. I believe in the power of a community, a dedicated and motivated group of people on a shared mission to transform the world in actionable, concrete, lasting ways.

I hope you'll agree that the world needs more of your voice. More voices speaking up for tolerance and speaking out against tyranny, more voices banding together, more voices supporting one another.  But also more voices sharing the messages of conscious lifestyle, connection, healing, and harmony. Messages of renewal and self-care, consciousness and wide-open worldviews that are so essential during times of great upheaval.

And that's where you come in.

Whatever your specific modality, your work is transformation. As a healer, a helper, a coach, a guide, a mentor, a teacher, or a leader, you work for change and you believe change begins with you.

@@ Healers, helpers, coaches, guides, mentors, and teachers, you work for change and change begins with you. @@

I believe that, too.

And for too long, I've kept silent about some of the real challenges facing female founders + holistic entrepreneurs who want to earn a meaningful living doing the purpose-fueled work of transformation. In no particular order, I’ve seen brilliant, gifted, driven women entrepreneurs grapple with:

• Fear of worthiness, prominence, and power

• Lack of trust in their abilities (and its cousin, Imposter Complex)

• Difficulty setting boundaries and saying, “No”

• The energetic toll of work that supports clients with deep-seated emotional needs

• Fear of visibility, and of the intolerance that often comes with being a visible woman

• Uneasiness with marketing

• Distaste for self-promotion

• Limiting beliefs around money

• Choosing comfort over the discomfort of bold, intentional action

• Putting others’ needs and desires first, letting business take the back-burner

I've worked with clients deeply in debt or on the verge of bankruptcy who were still under-charging, convinced they couldn’t ask clients for more money for their transformative services. I've witnessed despair and exhaustion in women entrepreneurs 10+ years into building their businesses, burned out and with no tangible assets to show for their hard work. I've listened to stories of women walking away from their heart-driven work because their ethics and their bank accounts felt misaligned. I've heard from hundreds of women entrepreneurs working in the transformative arts, eager to build sustainable incomes doing what they love … but failing to first learn the basics of business.

And I’m over it.

I want you to get a little mad. I want you to use the energy of that anger to reshape the reality of being a female entrepreneur in the business of personal transformation. I want you to get revved up and prime yourself to make some tough changes.

Because the world needs your work now more than ever. This is your moment. Our moment. And we need to embrace it with both arms.

Every single one of you who feels like you’re stuck in a tape-loop of repetitive suffering in your business, it’s time to break free.

Every single one of you who’s ready to effect real change in the world—and who feels driven to do that by sharing your purposeful work—it’s time to step up.

Every single one of you who’s ready to break through to better business—ethics intact—it’s time to push forward.

There’s no time like the present. Let’s do this.

Together.

Supporting each other every step of the way.

If reading this lit your inner flame, but you're not sure what to do next, I'm here to help stoke that intention into a fire of action. Apply here for a complimentary Breakthrough to Clarity coaching call and I'll listen, process, and advise. I promise to find ways to unlock phenomenal personal success while simultaneously continuing the work you do to heal our world

Keep Business Sweet, Simple (and Sustainable) for the Holidays

We holistic entrepreneurs and small business owners know that the winter holiday season can be rough. Hectic. Overwhelming and incredibly hard to manage. It’s meant to be a time of celebration and relaxation, but many of us opt for worry and stress instead. We get anxious over year-end numbers, scramble to throw together customer appreciation events, pressure ourselves to add new offerings, and gradually pile more items onto our already-full plates until we’re ready to keel over.

We’ve already chatted about maximizing your time during the holidays to fill offers and secure new clients, and I certainly don’t want you to abandon those tactics! But today, let’s look at the all-important flip-side: Simplification.

If—like many of us—your stress levels creep ever higher the closer we get to singing “Auld Lang Syne,” then clearing the decks, paring down your activities, AND planting seeds of intention for the new year are all beneficial practices. Let’s talk details.

Create a DON’T List

We all have time-sucking tasks that creep in when we’re avoiding harder or more complex work. Plust tasks that we enjoy and justify as important, even when we secretly know they’re non-essential. So if you’re someone who’s subject to Holiday Inundation Syndrome, force yourself to make a DON’T list of projects and activities that can be temporarily abandoned.

MICRO: List out three things you will NOT do today. Either make a new list each day, or enforce a single list throughout the season. (You’ll know what will work best for your specific business model … and bad habits!)

MACRO: Take a hard look at your business now that we’re rounding out the year. What worked? What didn’t? Slash what didn’t work, and you instantly have more bandwidth to build on what did work.

EXAMPLE: Streamline your offers to reduce the amount of confusion (for your clients) and overwhelm (for you). If you have multiple offers, packages, or services but several of them aren’t performing, now is the ideal time to slash the ones that don’t generate income. Train your focus on your top performers, and let the rest go.

@@The holidays are the PERFECT time to streamline your offers to reduce confusion (for clients) and overwhelm (for you). @@

Get Back to Basics

After you’ve considered what to put on hold or jettison entirely, ponder your non-negotiables. And I’m not talking about “paying the rent” or “making a profit,” I mean higher-level goals and deep-seated needs. Think back to why you love your work, and which aspects of it feel utterly essential. Then force yourself to simplify.

MICRO: Ask yourself, “Which self-care needs must be met for me to feel the way I most enjoy feeling—in business and in life?” Find ways to meet those needs every single day. Seriously.

MACRO: Ask yourself, “Which basic business practices MUST be in place for me to have a happier holiday season?” If you need help keeping those practices humming along, prioritize finding that help.

EXAMPLE: To give yourself more breathing room for self-care and the energy to focus on essential practices, front-load some of the promotional and back-of-office processes that need to run in the background. Pre-write blog posts, pre-schedule social media, automate your billing and invoicing, hire an assistant, do whatever it takes to ensure you can pare down your activities without missing a beat.

Take Baby Steps Toward World Domination (for the Greater Good)

As the year draws to a close, we all end up doing some goal-setting for the year that approaches. But typical resolutions don’t always work for conscious entrepreneurs. So instead, I’d encourage you to gaze into the (near) future by portioning your big visions and dreams into achievable action steps. And challenging yourself to take action on one thing every day.

MICRO: Define your primary purpose in this world for more inspiration and energy. Take time to journal, self-study, or reflect on what you feel you are truly meant to do. Try boiling it down to a single mission statement or summary. (Mine is “I am here to be the person I needed.”) Stuck? Try this formula: I'm a ___. I help ___ [do]___ so they can _____.

MACRO: Once you define your big dreams for your business (and life), the next step is putting a timeframe around them. What aspects of your Big Vision will fit into the span of a single year? How about 2 years? 5 years? 10 years?

EXAMPLE: If your goal is to help as many people as possible heal their relationships with their bodies, make a list of organizations doing similar work and connect with them via email or social media, one per day. When you run out, research individuals doing similar work, and connect with one per day. Soon you’ll have a robust network of like-minded healers, and the ability to reach and help a much larger pool of people.

It’s so easy for me to command you to simplify your practices, and far more complicated for you to actually DO it. I know, and I want you to know that I know. But here’s the thing: If you want to make it through this holiday season with less stress, more focus, and a mindset that will prime you for a truly amazing year to come, simplification is the only way to fly. And I hope these suggestions will help you do just that.

Need help finding more concrete examples of how to pare down your practices? Come on over to the Conscious Kula and hit us up for ideas!

Want more clients as a Coach Healer or Helper? Solve problems

Business is about solving problems.

The more clear you become on the specific problems you solve for particular clients, the more success you’ll have in your business and marketing efforts.

As a coach, your focus is to help your clients achieve their goals. To connect with potential clients, it's essential to identify the specific problems they want to solve. Good businesses solve problems, but not just any problem – a specific, urgent problem that the potential client is actively looking to solve.

By conceptualizing your business's products and services as solutions to specific, urgent problems that your perfect-fit clients want to solve, you've already done half the work of selling your products and services. Besides, when you are able to reframe your marketing efforts from “all about you” to “all about the problems you’ll solve for your clients” it becomes much easier to show up consistently and share your message.

To attract your perfect-fit clients, you need to identify the problem you solve as —and for whom. The specific problem your business services solve might not be the problem other coaches, healers, or holistic practitioners solve: or you might solve the same problem but for different perfect-fit clients.

Before you go any further in planning your programs, services, or packages ensure you are addressing problems worth solving:

Problems your perfect-fit clients know they have

Your potential clients have hidden problems that they may not know how to fix. Or that they don’t even know are the cause of the surface problems they KNOW they have.

Attempting to solve these “unknown” problems will backfire if your potential clients aren't motivated to find and fix the underlying problem.

For example, if you are a Life Coach who helps clients transition to a healthier mindset, you need to target clients who are motivated to improve their outlook on life. The chronic complainers need your services but they don’t know they have a problem (yet).

Problems your customer cares about addressing

Your potential clients must be aware of the problem that needs solving and care about solving the problem.

In fact, these are the most valuable types of problems for you as a coach to solve because your client is motivated to solve them.

For example, if you are a coach who specializes in career transitions, you need to target clients who are motivated to find a new career path, who are on every job search platform, and who are actively seeking support in their career transition.

What problem(s) do you solve?

Identify the higher-order problems your business solves for a particular client.

Once you clarify these problems, you can develop your unique solution (which is the fun part!).

Solving a valuable problem that your perfect-fit client is aware of, in a unique way, while providing excellent service, is a recipe for success.

By identifying and solving specific, urgent problems that your perfect-fit clients want to solve, you can attract more clients to your healing, helping or coaching business.

How to Stay Proactive When Life Gets in the Way

“Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.” - John Lennon

Eloquent words from a modern poet-prophet, to be sure. But sometimes, life isn’t limited to the swirl of activities on the sidelines of your work and ambitions. Sometimes life actually monkeys with the plans you’ve made. Life can be hurricanes and broken legs, busted carburetors and cancelled flights, sick kids and lost dogs. Sometimes life is an unexpected mini-disaster that brings everything to a grinding halt. Sometimes life is the hulking bully who runs down the beach to stomp all over the exquisite sandcastle you’ve been building all day long.

You can be meticulous and careful, have capable staff on-call to help in emergencies and a half-dozen backup plans … and still get screwed by natural disasters, germs, or planned obsolescence. No matter how diligent you are in your business plans and entrepreneurial actions, sometimes life steps in and derails you.

I watched this happen to a dear friend of mine just last week, so it’s top-of-mind for me now. And I realized that many of you lovely readers could likely benefit from the advice I gave to reassure her that all was not lost. (And to prevent her from constantly hyperventilating.)

Here are some simple, smart actions you can take when life throws roadblocks onto your path to success:

Simplify your business plan

Remember: 80% of your income is the result of 20% of your efforts. Your top-performing classes or offerings are always exponentially more profitable than less popular ones, so when life gets hairy, cut the dead weight. Identify that uber-profitable 20%, and simplify your business to that / those offers. Even if this is just a temporary switch, it can make life in emergency mode SO much more manageable. Need support identifying that 20%?

Choose one point of focus per week / month / quarter

Conscious entrepreneurs are chronic multi-taskers., and we tend to try to do everything ourselves. It’s a risky way to operate, but many of us make it work right up until the studio floods or the server crashes. When that finally happens, we are forced to focus. Focus is practical magic and the more you can laser in on the things that need to happen to move your business forward, the easier juggling everything else will become. Separate the day-to-day operations tasks from the growth tasks, and assign out the former to trusted employees. Pick a single item from the latter group to tackle each week, month, or quarter. Just one. That’s plenty. And focusing on it will help you feel productive and forward-looking even when you’re functioning in the wake of catastrophe.

Stay narrow and strong

Which of your regular responsibilities, roles, or offers are causing your now-limited energy to dissipate? The more you stay in your strength zone—your zone of genius where your unique magic lies—the less of a drain your business will be. And it’s essential that you conserve and manage your energy in times of crisis. Not sure what your zone of genius is or how to identify your unique magic? I’ve got you covered right here!

Let it go

Let’s be real: Sometimes life happens and you absolutely have to breathe into the holes that it creates in your business. Let it go and ride the wave: this too shall pass. (Even if it feels like it never will.) Remember to be gentle with yourself as you put the pieces back together. Ease yourself back into the swing of things when you can, but don’t apply any undue pressure.

Self-care is a business strategy

Speaking of which, never forget to listen to your needs and ask for help when catastrophe comes a’callin’. You are the beating-heart center of your business, so self-care is absolutely a business strategy! Identify three or four self-care practices that encourage you to feel vibrant, healthy, capable, and strong. Then stick to those come heck or high water. Promise me!

Find a community

If you’re in the throes of a business-derailing disaster right now, I sincerely hope some of these tips feel do-able to you. But if not—or if you could use an extra shot of support and empathy—come join us at the Conscious Entrepreneur’s Kula. Don’t go thinking this is “just an online community.” This amazing group knows how to help, heal, and nourish its members, and we’ve always got room for one more.

Crises can teach us essential lessons and illuminate what’s most important in our lives. But that doesn’t make them any more fun to live through. The next time life gets in the way of your plans, use these strategies to keep yourself moving forward.

Breaking the Cycle: Push Beyond Strategy Into Action

Have you started changing your “what ifs” to “what thens” yet? I know it might sound like a laughably miniscule shift, but take it from me: changing your internal monologue can totally transform your mindset. Even though we take them for granted almost every day, words are powerful. Language is life-changing. Just ask Susan B. Anthony or Martin Luther King, Brene Brown or Malala Yousafzai. The right words can change the world for the better. And that includes the inner world of your personal aspirations and ambitions.

@@ The right words can change the world for the better. And that includes the inner world of your personal aspirations and ambitions @@

Answers aren’t actions

If you’ve already committed to the forward-thinking, preparedness-minded language of “what then,” kudos to you! Right now, you may be digging into the work of releasing your fears and building out contingency plans ... OR you may be spinning your wheels. You have some rough ideas of how to answer those daunting questions:

If I can’t pay my bills this month, what then?

If I launch a program and no-one enrolls, what then?

If I raise my rates and no-one buys from me, what then?

But even with answers in-hand, you may still fear moving forward. If you can’t pay your bills and decide that your Plan B is to borrow from your retirement fund, you may dread how your partner or family may react. If you lose customers after raising your rates and choose more aggressive marketing as your solution, you may cringe at the thought of kicking self-promotion into high-gear. You’ve got answers now, and you’ve got backups. But you may still be frozen in place.

Strategy and beyond

Action that moves us closer to our goals requires strategy. You can’t just fling yourself at a goal and hope you’ll land on the bull’s eye, you’ve gotta have a plan. A plan with a series of logical steps, built-in community support, and research on expected outcomes. Not a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants plan, a thought-out, coach-or-colleague vetted, planful plan. (Need help with this step? I’m here for ya!)

@@ You can't just fling yourself at a goal and hope you'll land on the bull's eye, you've gotta have a plan @@

And, of course, crafting a fully fledged long-term strategy is a huge first step, but it’s not enough. Implementing this strategy requires intentional action. And I mean showing up every day and chipping away at the activities and changes you’ve identified as essential.

@@ Crafting a fully fledged long-term strategy is a huge first step, but it's not enough. Yoke energy to focus for more intentional action @@

But that can be scary. It pushes you to your growth edge - that uncomfortable place where you have to choose between the familiar and the future - and forces you to think about your business in different, challenging ways.

Fear can lead to avoidance.

Avoidance makes you to downshift into easy, brainless, maintenance tasks.

Piling on the little, ineffective actions drains your energy.

And then you’ve landed back to square one where you’re filling your days with busywork and studiously ignoring the big picture. Your goals sit in a corner, neglected and forlorn. And maybe crying just a little bit.

Accountability is the antidote

Nobody wants forlorn goals, am I right? We want our goals lively and vibrant and cheering us on at every turn. We want goals that excite and motivate us

And, as it turns out, a community of lively, vibrant people who cheer you on at every turn can help make just about any goal feel more achievable. Going it alone allows you to fall down endless rabbit holes of worry and fear, ending up in a state of analysis paralysis. Connecting with others can help you talk through your fears, break through to action, and make real progress.

@@ A community of lively, vibrant people who cheer you on can make just about any goal feel achievable. @@ 

Struggling to find a community in your own neck of the woods? The Kula is always open to new members, and a phenomenal place to practice accountability among open-minded, supportive e-friends. Won’t you join us?

Two words that can make or break your business.

Doing it all is overrated.

Focusing your efforts on strategic, key tasks is the only way to fly.

Buuuuuut ... let's take a moment to acknowledge that honing in on those key tasks and letting go of schedule-clogging, energy-sapping activities is daunting. After all, some of those schedule-clogging, energy-sapping activities are the ones you could do in your sleep, and others yield instant positive feedback. Work like this sometimes FEELS more productive than big-picture work because it's done in the moment and we see results in the moment.

The risk of keeping ourselves busy with these non-strategic tasks is that we get stuck. We end up treading water - sometimes very much on purpose - to avoid tackling bigger, scarier decisions and getting serious about growing our businesses. And when we finally start to dial in those strategic tasks? Fear shows up. Fear of risk and failure, waste and embarrassment, trashing all progress and having to start over from scratch. When fear climbs into the driver's seat, wrenching back control of the wheel can feel impossible.

I believe thoughts compel behavior.

I believe we can change our thoughts.

In changing our thoughts, we can change our behavior.

Really, I believe in the power of language.

There are two words that can make or break your business.

What if.

What if I don’t make it?

What if I can’t pay my bills this month?

What if my website gets hacked?

What if I launch a program and no-one enrolls?

What if I raise my rates and no-one buys from me?

What if I spend 3 months writing a book and no-one wants to publish/buy/read it?

@@ There are two words that can make or break your business. What if. Stop what if-fing yourself to death @@

Instead of what if-fing yourself to death, hit the pause on this disturbing thought train and choose a more productive line of inquiry.

What then?

If I don’t make it [this time], what then?

If I can’t pay my bills this month, what then?

If my website gets hacked, what then?

If I launch a program and no-one enrolls, what then?

If I raise my rates and no-one buys from me, what then?

If I spend 3 months writing a book and no-one wants to publish/buy/read it, what then?

What then may have a similar end clause to what if. The difference is in the result.

What if leaves you grasping for straws, what then leaves you prepared to take your next steps. Building a thriving business is not the path of least resistance. In order to thrive, there are so many lessons that we need to learn.

And in changing your thought process from what if to what then, there are two very important lessons.

@@What if leaves you grasping for straws, what then leaves you prepared to take your next steps @@

(1) Let Go of Fear

The unknown is innately terrifying. And what if, takes us deep into the terror—creating worst-case scenarios and forcing us to stew in that fear. But we all know that fear doesn’t serve us.

Fear holds us back from success by preventing us from even trying. Fear causes us to guard our hearts—keeping us from showing the very vulnerability that makes us human (and in turn develops trust!). Fear keeps us from making investments in our businesses and in our education—what if I don’t make my money back on this investment?

Guess what? The fear never goes away. We just get better at letting go of it and acting anyway.

@@What if takes us to a place of fear. The fear never goes away. We just get better at letting go of it and acting anyway.@@

(2) Always have a plan B (and maybe a C & D)

Let’s get very clear on something—letting go of fear does not mean being reckless. It does mean letting go of the negative thought patterns, beliefs and behaviors that are keeping you from deeply trusting yourself – and your mission in the world.

Stop playing the what if game with yourself, because you’re only feeding a fear-monster that doesn’t serve you. BUT don’t ignore the fact that things do not always work out as we would like.

The possibility of failure is huge—especially for new entrepreneurs who are just starting to build a following.

Prepare for any outcome by changing your language from what if, to what then.

Knowing how you are going to pick up the pieces and move forward is invaluable. It has the power to reduce anxiety and reduced anxiety will increase confidence and, in turn, increase your potential for success.

@@Prepare for any outcome by changing your language from what if, to what then.@@

Your Dream Clients can sense your confidence or lack thereof—even if they can’t quite put their fingers on it. Amazingly enough, boosting your confidence is as simple as changing just two words. Those two words are the difference between being scared and being strategic.

To more sacred strategy,