I always forget how far I have come until I do an interview. My recent interview with Holistic Entrepreneur was a fun one!
Here’s a taste…
What inspired you to enter the world of holistic health?
It’s interesting, I was never really inspired to it; it just kind of unfolded.
I originally went to school for physical therapy (PT) not because I knew a whole lot about it, it just sounded better than working in the grocery store for another 5 years.
When I finished my prerequisite work and was working in a PT clinic I really enjoyed figuring out the puzzle of people. For instance, if a girl came to me with radiating pain into her arm, it was fun to figure out if it was coming from a herniated disc, a nerve impingement, or something else. Because I was good with my hands, the group of PT’s I was working with encouraged me to enter the massage therapy program. I did, and loved it. I loved combining the manual therapy skills I had learned from my PT mentors and the massage techniques I learned in school.
I would have worked there for years if my mentors hadn’t encouraged me to open up my own practice. I faced a lot of fear at first, but with their support, I found the courage and Lake Washington Massage Therapy was born. When it grew, I faced fear once more at the thought of hiring someone to help. I had no idea how to hire! But I did it, and my practice continued to grow. I was definitely a reluctant entrepreneur at first!
The funny thing about fear is that when I am in the throes of it, it seems very powerful and ominous. But afterwards I look back and say to myself, “That wasn’t so bad!”
I almost lost it all when I was in a car accident and herniated a disc in my neck and couldn’t practice massage anymore. But my team kept the clinic together while I went through surgery and rehabilitation. I then ran the clinic for a couple of years, but hated it. I am not a paperwork person and being on the phone with insurance companies all day was like poking my eye out with a fork twenty times a day. Not my bliss.
Then one day a flyer came across my desk about a nutritional therapy program. I immediately signed up for it. I couldn’t perform massage anymore, but I could definitely figure out the nutritional puzzle of people. I was back in my bliss!
But then something else happened. My clients were unable to implement the diets and protocols I put together for them. Even worse, I was also having trouble walking the walk when it came to food. This sent me down another rabbit hole, another puzzle to solve! This is when Good Decisions Inc. was born.
So I wasn’t really inspired to it, it just seemed to be where my life took me.
Read the rest of my interview here!
