Today is “What You Think Upon Grows” Day (not sure who made that up, but it’s a good theme to go with!), and it got me thinking about working with women during pregnancy and birth. Early on in my work as a doula, I began to encourage my clients to focus on what they wanted for their births. If they were fixated on what they didn’t want, I’d have them turn it around. What DID they want?

Money has an energy all its own, fluid and expansive. Take care of it and it will take care of you. Neglect it, abuse it, or hold onto it too tightly, and it hits the road.

I’ve seen how some practitioners in the healing and helping fields have difficulty with money… how they make it, keep it, and grow it. One’s relationship with money affects how much (or whether) that practitioner will charge for services and the opinions and judgments one practitioner has about one another around this topic.

Today while my son was hanging out with me as I worked, he picked up a check that I received from a student of mine and we had this little exchange:

Son: “Mom, is this check really for $xxx.00?”

Me, glancing up from my laptop: “Yes it is. I get paid to teach childbirth classes.”

Son: “But do you like doing it?”

It helps to be really clear about who you want to serve with your birth business. If you are just starting out, you may have to take a guess for now and adjust your ideal client profile as you gain experience. What’s wonderful, though, about having your own practice is that you make changes at any time!

Set an intention today that you will attract more clients by preparing several interview packets. By having a few packets that are ready to go, you will be sending a message out to the Universe that you’re ready and willing to receive more clients into your practice.

What should you include in your interview packets? Here are some suggestions:

Do your days run you? Do you feel like you spend a lot of your time reacting to what’s going on around you right now than deliberately planning your day? Are you ready to slow down and take control of your schedule? Are you ready to do more meaningful activities and live more consciously?

Stephen Covey says the “essence of these needs is captured in the phrase ‘to live, to love, to learn, to leave a legacy’.” Explore a new way of looking at self care and how it helps enable you to serve others in the work you do and the life you live.

Let your clients and colleagues know how much you appreciate them during this Thanksgiving season!

In Parts 2 and 3, we explored the spiritual and emotional aspects of the Inner Work of building your birth business. In this final article, I’ll talk about the Outer Work of growing your practice. The Mental Aspect of Business Once you have done some of the Inner Work of building your business, you are [...]

Do you have a zillion ideas, a never-ending to-do list, and feel like your head is about to explode? Are you so overwhelmed with life that thinking up stuff for your business doesn’t seem possible?

Years ago I learned about “morning pages” – writing 3 pages every morning, kind of a mind dump, if you will. In my marketing mastermind with Ronnie Noize, she suggested doing morning pages each day about my business. What a great idea!