The Top Ten Things That Confuse Alternative Practitioners, Coaches & Other Heart-Based Entrepreneurs About Business

As someone who for many years was a “general practice healer” (and I still do that, too), why did I start focusing on helping people build their practices?

There are several reasons, but one of them is that I began to understand in a deep way what makes heart-based practitioners like us different, and how that’s wonderful, and also how that can make going into business tricky. Such practitioners often suffer unnecessarily, for reasons really specific to them. But with a few re-frames (and some work!), it’s possible to find a better way that allows success in business and full alignment with yourself and your values.

Since I’ve found my way through that, I want to share what I discovered, so that all of you with such wonderful skills could share them with everyone else who needs them.

As I thought this through, I came up with my very first (and hopefully, only) “Top Ten” article for you to think about–do any of them apply to you?

(Some of them are obvious, and some of them are pretty subtle. And, even if you aren’t self-employed and don’t want to be, you may find some of these apply to you, too.)

1. Many of these people have had little or no exposure to business (and their training schools didn’t teach them any business stuff), so the learning curve can be steep.

2. Many of them have little natural inclination to business, so doing it can feel boring, uninspiring, or irrelevant to the real work they want to do.

3. Healers often can’t stand seeing their work commodified (that is, have a price put on it).

4. Healers are often trying unconsciously to heal cultural or family ways of life that didn’t respect and support full human dignity. For some of these practitioners, business is permanently associated with what they are trying to fix in the world.

5. Many of these practitioners want to see a different economic world than the one we currently operate in, and it can feel unethical to seek proper financial security if one is committed to that alternative vision.

6. The world of business growth programs for so-called “conscious entrepreneurs” is overwhelming right now. It’s hard to choose amongst the baffling array of choices.

7. Because many of these practitioners are new to the business world, they may have a hard time evaluating various approaches and programs. They are often guided by a “good feeling,” and if scarcity consciousness is playing a role, they may pay a whole lot of money for something that is of poor value, not what they need at the time, or not a fit for who they are.

8. Many business coaches teach a way to success that was their way to success. So they teach a cookie cutter approach rather than the art of business. This works well enough when the client is in alignment with the cookie cutter approach, but if they aren’t, they can’t evolve another way to get to where they want to go, and they often feel as if they have failed.

9. Heart-based people usually have little tolerance for being out of alignment with their values for an extended period. If they are taught business principles that are out of alignment with their values, but they try to apply them anyway because an “expert told them to,” their unconscious inner wisdom often shuts down their progress. This is often interpreted as “an inadequate success mindset” or “not really wanting it,” when actually it’s inner wisdom trying to be heard.

10. When these people end up “failing” with a business program or coach, it can be immensely discouraging. They often blame themselves (especially if they are dealing with any lifelong self-esteem problems) rather than ask critical questions about the coaching they received.

How about you? Do any of these resonate with you? I’d be really interested to hear what “business” feels like to you.