BLOG 203: 3 WAYS TO HAVE A BUSINESS WHICH IS HEART-LED AND FULL OF PASSION
Feb 20, 2023
Something I’ve been working on over the past couple of years is really showing up as my full, multi-faceted self. For a long time, I thought that I could only talk about Face Yoga – that finding my business niche meant that I needed to focus just on that one thing.
But the truth is that we all have loads of different strands that make up the people we are.
I love Face Yoga, but I’m also passionate about many other things – including health and wellness, my family, spiritual growth, and teaching others what I’ve learnt about building a business that aligns with your deep soul-purpose.
So, I really enjoyed chatting recently with Amber Hagberg, a life coach, yoga teacher, and business mentor based in Costa Rica.
Amber joined me on the Face Yoga Expert Podcast to share her inspirational journey from Colorado to Costa Rica and the many turns her business has taken on the way.
You can find the full episode here.
Speaking to Amber, I realised she shares my belief that building a business that aligns with your soul purpose means being willing to take risks, follow your intuition, and embrace all the many different parts of yourself.
Inspired by that conversation, I’m diving a bit deeper into those ideas in this blog post and am sharing three ways to have a business that is heart-led and full of passion. If you’re an entrepreneur wondering how to live your soul purpose through your business, this one is for you!
1. EMBRACE THE CALL TO PIVOT
First of all, I want to look at something that can feel really scary – being willing to pivot your business in a new direction.
I’ve done this a few times during my career. I started teaching meditation and relaxation, then felt called to focus more on yoga. In turn, this led me to develop my face yoga method. Then, I had to make the decision to stop teaching many of my yoga classes and one-to-one clients to concentrate on building the Face Yoga Expert brand.
And, of course, most recently I’ve brought in the business coaching side through my Soul Purpose Business offerings.
Like me, Amber has changed course several times over her career. She moved to an entirely new country, which is a major transition! And then went from teaching yoga classes and retreats to leading teacher trainings.
From there, she pivoted into life coaching. And as she built a successful business, more and more people started asking her to teach them to do the same. Amber realised she was needed as a business mentor and coach too, so this became another string to her bow.
For both of us, those pivots have been led by something deep inside – that inner voice that starts off whispering and eventually grows louder and louder until you know you have to make a change.
Even when your intuition is guiding you, making a pivot feels scary and uncomfortable. To turn your back on something that is going well and take a leap of faith into something new is hard!
It can also be difficult when you know you have existing clients who love what you do. I’ve definitely felt this in the past. But when your intuition is telling you to make a change, you’re missing a real opportunity to find out what else you could build.
Of course, when we pivot we don’t lose what we’ve done in the past. We bring our experience with us. I still teach many of the same techniques I used in those first relaxation classes almost 18 years ago. I just use them in different ways and in different contexts.
Many times, you’ll find that people come with you. In fact, seeing you be brave and take that leap into the new might be just what they need to inspire them to make a change in their own lives.
Yes, it feels scary. I’ve pivoted my business many times now and each time it has been worthwhile. But I still feel that fear and I still hear the little voice of doubt in my head.
The trick is to learn to sit with that discomfort. Understand where it is coming from, but don’t let it hold you back. And the more you follow your intuition instead of letting fear stop you, the more you’ll gain confidence and trust your inner knowing to lead you in the right direction.
2. BE YOUR MULTI-PASSIONATE SELF
At the start of this post, I mentioned that I’ve been working on showing up as my full self in the last few years.
For a long time, I thought I had to stay in the box of being “the Face Yoga Expert”. I love face yoga and I’m passionate about what I do, so it seemed to make sense to focus just on that one niche.
But there’s more to me than this one area of passion. More recently, I’ve been bringing together the different strands of myself – not just the business sides of me but also the personal sides of being a woman, a mother, and a wife.
Instead of trying to keep each part of ourselves separate, we can bring all our different pillars into everything we do.
For example, Amber brings the meditation and yogic philosophy she learnt from being a yoga teacher and life coach into her business coaching too. It’s this unique combination of gifts that makes her the right coach for the people who she works with.
Your focus might change in different seasons, but you don’t need to do just one thing. If trying to find a niche is putting you off starting, then don’t! You are the niche, you are the brand. It is your different passions that make you who you are.
When you show up in your fullness, you’ll find those soulmate clients who need exactly what you offer.
So, be multi-passionate. Embrace all the pillars of yourself and let them shine through your business.
3. SEE SELLING AS A SERVICE
Something else that Amber and I have in common is the journey we’ve been on when it comes to selling our offerings.
I think this is something that is especially common in the wellness sector. And especially among women!
We want to help others. For most of us, that’s why we got into this business in the first place. And we might have some unhelpful limiting beliefs around money and selling that make us feel that we can’t be spiritual women in wellness and also market our offerings or make good money.
For many of us, negative ideas about money come from our childhoods and how those around us spoke about money. Often, those conversations will have been very based in scarcity thinking. As adults, we bring those ideas about money with us, and it can really hold us back from achieving the freedom we want in our lives.
I’ve done a lot of work on overcoming money blocks like these – something I now teach to other people through Soul Purpose Business Course Bundle. For me, working with the Root Chakra and with EFT tapping have really helped in changing my relationship with money.
Amber also used to have a difficult relationship with money. She struggled to market her services because she felt like selling was sleazy.
But then she saw the impact her programmes were having on women’s lives. She realised she was doing people a disservice – if she didn’t showcase what she was offering, people who could really benefit from it couldn’t find her.
She began to see selling as a service. It means she can help more people because they know she’s there and what she offers.
Amber also sees money now as an energetic exchange. So, she’s not taking something from her clients. Instead, it’s an exchange where both people get something they need.
Money is essential for safety, security, and to meet our needs. We also need it so that we can invest in ourselves and our families. So, it isn’t a bad thing to charge for our services.
Once you see money as energy, it is easier to allow it to flow to you. It comes and goes, and it is abundant. But, you first have to be willing to admit to yourself that you want it.
Everyone deserves to have the abundance and freedom they desire. It takes inner work and aligned action to get to the point where you are able to welcome the flow of money into your life. But, once you embrace this mindset, it can happen quite quickly.
This is an ongoing process, so it isn’t as though you’ll do this work once and be done. I liken it to peeling an onion – we always have more layers to work through. It’s a lifelong journey.
INVEST IN YOURSELF
One last thought before I finish. Something Amber said that has really stuck with me is how important it is to look at the lifetime return of investing in yourself.
The examples she gave were her yoga teacher training and the coach she hired to help her build her business in Costa Rica.
In both cases, the skills and knowledge she gained are still paying off today and will continue to give her a return on her investment for many years to come. She’s used what she learnt to build a thriving business and is now able to help others by sharing her own experience too.
If 2023 is the year that you invest in yourself and your business, take a look at my Soul Purpose Business Course Bundle.
The bundle includes both my 10-session Be Your Own Brand course and my 2-module Soulful Social Media Success course. You’ll also get 3 bonus workshops to help you grow your brand in a soulful way.
Through these courses, I share everything I’ve learnt over the past 17 years of building an international wellness brand.
You’ll discover how to live your true soul purpose, have freedom in your life and your business, and make the money you want to make. And you’ll learn how to do all of this in a way that leaves time for self-care, health, and relationships, so you can build a thriving business without burning out.
