When I think about my past career in the traditional business world, I have both positive and negative memories. My positive memories are associated with the wonderful opportunities that I had to learn and hone top-shelf business skills. My negative memories spiral around the aggressive persona that I had to maintain to drive projects to successful completion as a female in male-energy-dominated Corporate America.
I found balance for my harder business edge during the work-week by studying spirituality on the weekends. I intuited I had a deep desire to live a more authentic life that intermingled my corporate and my spiritual personalities. The deeper I immersed myself in spiritual pursuits, the more I sensed that my Soul had a unique mission to accomplish by being a bridge between business and spirituality.
When I left traditional business to fulfil my Soul’s mission, I left behind what I thought was my aggressive masculine energy. After all, why would I need to hold any aggressive energy in the world of holistic arts? But what I unknowingly left behind was the softer version of my aggressive persona . . . in other words, my assertive nature.
What is the subtle difference between assertiveness and aggression? When operating your own business, you often must be assertive. You must be willing to stand up for your personal value while making a living doing what you are passionate about. How does that fit with the spiritual and wellness communities which thrive on the feminine energy of creativity and collaboration? Often, we see these values clash as many spiritual teachers, healers and wellness providers are not financially successful because they lose sight of their masculine energies.
The problem with losing the masculine-focused energy is that it’s this energetic side that draws in all the cash that you need for your business and your life. If your feminine and masculine energies are unbalanced, it’s inevitable that you will not receive your true monetary value for your magnificent gifts. Do you deny that your gifts are “magnificent”? Well, you have honed your craft as you live your extraordinary life journey – of course your work is priceless.
Pricing your services is one of the most difficult aspects of moving into your own business. The little secret is that when you place an appropriate value on your work, then the clients who truly resonate with your offering will show up. Paying you your value will become a priority for them to get the results they need.
Becoming a successful holistic entrepreneur takes two sophisticated skill sets. The first involves pursuing the knowledge and experience you need to be an expert in your field. The second which often gets overlooked by holistic entrepreneurs is understanding how business works. Make no mistake that you are running a business and there are specific functions you’ll need to learn and do which are critical to your success. The also often overlooked consideration is that these functions can be done by you – but doing them yourself are not the best, most productive uses of your time.
As a novice entrepreneur, you may spend up to 80% of your time on administrative tasks and only 20% of your time working with clients. You need to flip these percentages to not only become financially successful, but to also live your life’s highest purpose in service to others. Over time, these excessive administrative activities will truly become a drain on your success.
It’s a rookie mistake for most entrepreneurs in the healing arts to think you can’t afford a business coach, a bookkeeper, an assistant or a marketing person, but, you can’t rise to spiritual and financial success unless you have these key support people. We all need business guidance in our holistic business. Every day, like you, I am faced with the process of valuing my worth, selling my services, managing my business and being present 100% for my clients. Now, I surround myself with a team of experts in the areas that I need help with.
Whether you are a current holistic entrepreneur or are contemplating leaving your “day job” in whole or in part to pursue your Soul Mission, I encourage you to pay close attention to setting your value and creating a business structure that will support it. In other words, don’t just work in your business but work on your business every day. Please connect with me to explore how to fine-tune your Soul Mission and to help you create a strategy to monetize your mission.
Robin Clare is an experienced corporate MBA, non-profit administrator and holistic entrepreneur. Robin is an advanced Akashic Record reader and a certified 13th Octave La Ho Chi energy healing practitioner. Robin won 2nd place in Natural Nutmeg’s Readers Poll for exceptional energy healers. She is the author of Messiah Within and the Amazon Best Selling spiritual book, The Divine Keys. Robin guides others to live their Soul Mission, remove their success blockers and create strategies for life and business success. Robin is available to speak to your community.
To learn more about Robin, please go to: www.clare-ity.com or call 860-232-3331.