Issue # 20 March 1, 1999

About the Author:

Standing In for Peace, Pleasure and Profitability In Your Business

This article is written for those of you who are service professionals and who grew up as "professional helpers." You work in a counselling, holistic, wellness or metaphysical type of business. You're a massage therapist. Or a grief counsellor. Someone who trained or studied in a helping profession. Or, you could be any other kind of professional who invested a lot in your professional training. And then found yourself running a business without having the expertise to do it.

You're good at what you do and you enjoy you work. BUT, you didn't necessarily learn, along with your other training, how to build a business - a profitable business. In fact, you may sometimes think that you love your work but don't love being in business. You're an expert in service delivery, not a business whiz.

At worst case, you may actually be uncomfortable around money, or around receiving it. You may have learned early that "money is the root of all evil," and so you tend to run your business just breaking even, or meagrely profitable, when it could be highly profitable for you and bring you great pleasure.

We believe that it's possible to be profitable AND love most things about being in business. How? By using your skills on yourself: listening, honoring and really tuning into your inner knowing. By gaining more confidence and permission to listen to and take better care of the service-delivery system - YOU!

Here's our point: You don't need to make a choice between Peace, Pleasure, and Profitability. These 3 all operate under natural universal laws. Here's what they have in common: They tend to find people who are available to receive them. So, some business people get a lot of profitability because they're available to receive it, but they don't get much peace or pleasure. They get what they're open to receiving. They don't get what they're not open to receiving.

About the Author:

Diane Menendez, Ph.D., M.C.C., business and life coach, has been a full-time professional coach since 1988. She's coached 350+ executive and professional clients to achieve their goals and, in the process, to create work and lives which are richly satisfying.

Diane's domain name, www.HeartDance.com, is an expression of her belief that, "Your work supports you to thrive when it brings you rich financial rewards and great joy." Yes, that's what she means -- real joy, enough to make your heart dance.

Contact Diane for a complimentary coaching session to help you discover your brilliance.

Contact info:
HeartDance, Cincinnati, Ohio USA
Ph: (513)474-1137
1(800)882-9383

Email: [email protected]
Web Site:
www.heartdance.com

How do you know what you're open to? It's generally what you focus your attention on the most - your positive attention, that is.

If you're a helper, you're probably a high contributor. You're more used to giving than receiving. Many service deliverers are very high contributors. You're good at it, find it easy, and it fits what you value. You're better at giving than receiving. In fact, you may find it embarrassing or uncomfortable to receive. Ask yourself, when was the last time you asked for help? Accepted help without a twinge of discomfort? You get the picture.

There's a very direct relationship between business success and personal success. We've said in other articles that you need to examine and identify your gifts and talents, the needs you have, the values you want to live by. It's also critical, in order to operate a viable and successful business, that you are able to receive. What's important to receive, we believe, are peace, pleasure, and profitability. In equal measure.

• Know Your Values. When you know what you stand ON and FOR in your business and life, you can begin to identify what's in place for you personally and what you still need to learn.

• Do What You Do Best. When you specialize and focus on doing what you do best, using your natural gifs and talents, then life automatically can become more pleasurable and effortless. You like to show up to do the work you do best. In fact, it often doesn't feel like work.

• Strengthen Your Base. Work on getting your needs met. Deepen and expand YOU. Know what you want and need, and go after getting your needs fulfilled. By identifying the honoring needs and values, we find what we can count on and use more of without cost. This frees up energy we've expended on struggle (and sometimes manipulation) to get others to meet these and give us what we want.

• Know Your Purpose. Focus on your particular purpose, your understanding of how YOU can best serve in your particular business, and what it takes to achieve success. Once your needs are fulfilled, you will have much more energy available for all of the rest of your life.

If you do the above, you deepen and expand your possibilities for life success. You're well along the journey of expanding your capability and willingness to receive. AND, you become more available to receive what can come to you. Your energy isn't tied up in things which get in the way of both giving and receiving. When you're more available to receive, you grow more universally attractive to others, including customers and clients.

Find this hard to believe? Ask yourself who is more attractive of the two people below:

1. Joe gives Jill a compliment about the excellent work she has done for him. Jill blushes, drops her eyes, hums and haws, and says "it was nothing." Joe walks away feeling like he wasn't heard and wondering why he paid for "the nothing." He feels uncomfortable that he caused Jill obvious discomfort and embarrassment. He leaves the shop a bit hastily. He may come back to Jill for her work again, but he'll feel awkward.

2. Joe gives Jane a compliment about her excellent work. Jane lights up - she smiles, meets Joe's eyes and is obviously delighted. Before she speaks, she pauses, taking in the acknowledgement and letting it really sink in. "Thank you," she says. "I really love my work." She follows up with, "If you know others who'd appreciate my services, please feel free to refer them. Tell them to say they are your friends." Joe feels great that he acknowledged her. He also recognizes that she, too, values her work. And, like a good businesswoman, she's aware that service businesses are built by referrals. Joe's a good businessman; he'll feel good about referring her to others.

Jane knows how to receive. She's delighted about being acknowledged. She appreciates the level of skill she has. She isn't embarrassed or reluctant to invite referrals, she knows that's just good business. When Joe refers others to her, she'll be delighted and she'll send a note or call him personally to share her pleasure.

Jane is ATTRACTIVE - and she's also someone who believes that peace, pleasure and profitability go hand in hand. You can see it in her face and in how she delivers service. That could be you, once you become as gifted a receiver as you are a contributor.

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