Dreaming of starting a spiritual, holistic, wellness or creative business?
Maybe you’ve already launched to lukewarm results and wonder if you’ll ever be able to leave your day job.
Or, you’ve been working in a totally different field, but now’s the time to explore becoming a spiritual teacher, massage therapist or yogi.
What if the map to your new, passionate career has been inside you the whole time? You know, the thing we call intuition?
An inner voice, whispering or shouting, ‘Let’s go for it! I think it’ll be great!’
Quickly followed by that pesky inner skeptic who dumps water on your fire. ‘That’s ridiculous, I don’t have a clue how to make a business work. Get real, I could never make a living as a healer, coach, writer or artist. Maybe I should stick with what I know, keep the steady paycheck.’
We all have an inner committee who sometimes contradicts each other.
What if you could tune-in to a more affirming committee?
A wisdom circle of other conscious souls also yearning for a life of deep meaning?
Who know they’re here to make the world a better place, but realize they need nurturing support and learning with like-minded people. Who understand launching a conscious business is not meant to be a solo journey.
From the Ground Up is a group mastermind to help you take your passionate, conscious business idea and manifest it into concrete reality.
Go from dreaming about having a life that lights you up, to experiencing it on a regular basis.
If you’ve been sitting on the fifth Zoom meeting of the day, finding yourself drifting off to la-la land – I totally get it. I spent the greater part of twenty years working in the corporate world. Some of those experiences were amazing and others were absolutely soul-sucking.
At some point, it became clear I needed to make an exit plan before my inner fire snuffed out completely. I began teaching free workshops in my home because I loved connecting with other sensitive people. As many of them came up after class to seek my advice, it became clear this was my new calling. I completed training to become a Transformational Presence Coach, launched my business, served four paid clients and made $476 my first year. Woo hoo, I was doing it!
Over time, what began as a weekend hobby expanded to coaching in the evenings, then into group programs.
Yet, the contrast was stark between who I got to be at my ‘day job’ and how I was unfolding spiritually through my soul work.
Through the guidance of several mentors, business courses, tons of market research, considerable elbow grease, trial and error, and amazing people in my life who were supportive – my business presence grew. A few more clients came in the door and then a few more. Three years in, I was finally ready to write my letter of resignation and take the leap into full-time self employment.
I went on to host the Evolved Empath Summit for The Shift Network, which reached over 60,000 participants from more than 100 countries. I’m now a member of the Shift faculty leading live, online courses for several hundred people at a time. I’m a co-founder of the 1 Million Empaths community, providing online learning for over 200 people each week. My writing’s been featured on multiple global platforms and I’ve been a guest speaker on numerous podcasts and online events.
Being an entrepreneur has brought more into my life than I ever imagined.
I haven’t regretted a moment of this journey.
I hear you thinking – it took three years to have a full-time business? Hmm, I was hoping it would grow quicker…
I don’t share to disappoint or discourage you. I just wish when I first started, that someone had told me what to expect. There were times when I was frustrated, thinking I wasn’t succeeding, when actually, I was right on track.
For most businesses, it takes at least three years to understand who you’re serving, find your voice, gain momentum and visibility, attract an audience of followers, beta-test several ideas and structure your offerings (and your time) to make a profit.
The first year of business is vitally important. You have the opportunity to set the foundations for everything that comes after.
Creating a sustainable business is like sculpting a human figure from a piece of stone. You begin with a large block, roughly the size and shape of the finished product. Maybe you sketch a few guidelines before you begin chipping away with a hammer and broad chisel.
In some areas you can chisel deep, while others take a finer touch. After a while, you begin to see the overall position of the body, but the details are still elusive. Every day, you come into your workshop, turn on inspiring music and continue to coax life from an inanimate object.
Sculpting a business that makes you want to get out of bed each morning, takes time, focus, new skills, knowing when to push through and when to rest. It requires you to keep looking at your work from different angles, because it ‘s complex and multi-dimensional. You’ll eventually switch out rough instruments for finer chisels and files. Now it’s finally beginning to look like something!
This is how I view business, as a creative, always changing, intuitive masterpiece. And it’s a marathon, not a sprint, regardless of how many shiny Facebook ads promise you to help you make 6-figures in three months. Hey, no shame, at the beginning I watched countless webinars seeking one magical answer to make my company an overnight success. If that happens, bless you. The entrepreneurs I respect and follow have been at it for quite a while and I’m in it for the long-term.
What’s so great about running your own business? Setting the tone and culture for everything about your company. If you don’t like the way things are going, have a quick sit-down with yourself, make some changes and pivot.
Excited to create your own entrepreneurial masterpiece?
Please read on…
Why a Wisdom Circle?
A wisdom circle is a sacred container we create together – where everyone is honored for who you are and what you bring. Your years of life experience, how we are all beginners in some areas, have mastery in others and most importantly, a shared commitment to a life of meaning, purpose and impact.
As we gather together virtually, our deep dive conversations bring forward a wealth of innovative ideas, support, laughter, clarity and aha moments. This is a place where you can get real about your entrepreneurial frustrations and celebrate every success.
Not only will I be sharing everything I’ve learned over the past eight years of shifting from serving as a volunteer, to officially launching, then changing my business focus mid-stream and more recently being featured on global platforms. Consider this your business’s incubator.
We meet together as a cohort for a year-long journey, to take your spark of an idea and bring it into form. By the end, you will understand your niche, what your ideal clients want and need and develop foundations for your brand. Know how and where to tell your story and serve clients with the spiritual, holistic, creative and wellness modalities you love.
How do you know if this is the right fit?
- You crave a life of meaning and purpose
- You have a strong desire to live and work according to your authentic, empathic, intuitive rhythms
- You care deeply about serving from the heart, empowering others and making your community and our world a more compassionate place
- You engage regularly in a spiritual practice and honor each person’s right to choose their unique spiritual path
- You’re practicing listening to your intuitive nudges
- You are able to give and receive constructive feed-forward and engage in respectful, honest dialogue
- You are self-motivated and self-accountable – not perfectly, but generally speaking
Plus:
- You’re drawn to coaching, teaching, creative expression, intuitive arts, therapy, bodywork, somatic movement, holistic health, social justic, ecological restoration, healing, energy work, mentoring, sustainability or similar conscious field
- You have a spark of an idea and know some of your strengths, but not quite sure how to make it come to life
- Or, you’re in year 1-2 of running a conscious business and are having difficulty gaining visibility or attracting clients
- Or, you’ve been working in a completely different field and are shifting into the spiritual, holistic or wellness arena
- You’re ready to make a 12-month commitment; show up fully for yourself and your vision
- You want to build the foundation for something meaningful in integrity with your personal values
Does this sound like you? Great, keep going…
Like a tree that puts down strong roots and a straight trunk to support a growing canopy, From the Ground Up is about bridging the grounded, Earthly realm (concrete how-to’s of running a business) with the expansive, Spiritual realm (your soul mission, personal and leadership growth).
Most business masterminds focus solely on what to do and how to do it. Of course, these tools are super important, so I’m including a healthy serving of practical skills and knowledge.
But I’ve learned you can have a good grasp of business basics and still feel self-doubt, nervous about being visible online, have a distaste of marketing and some serious energy blocks around charging for your services. This program attends to both aspects of your entrepreneurial journey.
Your heart and mind.
Your inner feminine (being) and outer masculine (doing).
How to thrive while also serving.
Plus, through the richness of our diverse group interactions and wisdom each participant brings, unexpected goodness will be discovered and co-created. We will practice healthy reciprocity, build confidence in a safe forum and lift you up as meaning, connection and abundance flows into your life.
Take a moment to explore the monthly themes and concepts:
Month 1: What You Want, Wants You
Earth:
- Getting clear on the deeper WHY underneath your desire to serve
- Using the learning from your journey to attract clients who need what you already know
- You don’t have to be completely healed, just a few steps ahead of your clients
Spirit:
- Addressing the push-pull dynamic
- Your soul is asking to do this, but you know it will call you up into a higher expression
- Which both thrills and scares the shit out of you
- The power of embodied manifestation
Month 2: The Novice & The Master
Earth:
- Recognizing the tools, skills, inspiration you’ve gained through every past job, relationship, challenge and triumph
- You’ve been preparing for this all along
- Time to apply what you’ve learned
Spirit:
- Moving from mastery into novice is hard on your ego
- The tunnel is dark, you often can’t see where you’re going
- Overcoming imposter and incompetence syndrome
Month 3: Show Up and Be Heard
Earth:
- Choosing the right online platform to feature your unique voice
- Done is better than perfect
- Why at first, quantity is better than quality
- Just write/speak/create what’s on your heart
Spirit:
- What do you have to say that others already haven’t?
- Why will people listen to you?
- What to do if there are haters, trolls or time-suckers?
Month 4: Reveal the True You
Earth:
- Conduct market research
- Where to find people who might be clients (clue: it’s where you already tend to hang out)
- Hone in on your unique niche
- You don’t have to offer this forever, it’s just a place to start
Spirit:
- Look back at every challenge you’ve overcome
- What do you know that someone else hasn’t discovered yet or said/taught/delivered in a certain way?
- The path is never done, you will continue to grow, master new gifts and be able to share them as you go along
Month 5: Plant Seeds
Earth:
- Plant seeds with your blogging, podcast, paintings, videos
- Offer free or paid beta sessions to see what works and what doesn’t
- View your business through the lens of experimentation
Spirit:
- Holistic transformation takes time and client investment, more than one session
- You will help some people to have ‘aha’ or pivotal moments
- You are not responsible for their entire life journey, only your own
Month 6: Own Your Wisdom
Earth:
- Reflect on what you’ve observed so far from your shared content, beta sessions, market research
- Define the intersection between what you love, what clients need and what they are willing to pay you for
- Refine your unique niche
Spirit:
- Revisiting imposter syndrome
- Power from within, power over, humility, self-effacing
- Celebrating every success
Month 7: Bring Your Offer Into Form
Earth:
- Craft and market a full-price, paid offer
- Asking for testimonials
- Serve 4+ people with in paid sessions
Spirit:
- The flow of giving and receiving
- Addressing your fears about being perfect or ‘the expert’ in the sessions
- Setting a powerful intention in advance, moving through the session and releasing the energy at the end
Month 8: Balancing Your Being with Your Doing
Earth:
- The more you put your work out in the world, the more self-care that’s required
- Taking care of you first is a non-negotiable to both thrive and serve, especially if you are juggling a day job and your business
- Developing a weekly schedule of work and rest
Spirit:
- Becoming intimately aware of your feminine and masculine energies
- Where have you tended to be dominant and where are you less comfortable?
- Honoring the natural rhythms and cycles of your day, your week, your life, your business.
- Why it’s necessary to take entire days or weeks off – the world won’t end, I promise
Month 9: A New Business is Flexible & Adaptable
Earth:
- Revisiting your offer from the results of the beta testing, did you enjoy it? Did clients have a good experience?
- What would you change, or do you want to start over with something else? Which is fine and happens.
- Conducting additional market research, testing out other platforms, ways of expanding your visibility
Spirit:
- Releasing attachment to outcome
- Facing the ‘success’ monster
- What if there is no failure – only learning and gradually increasing your mastery?
Month 10: Branding Creates a Vibration
Earth:
- Writing your bio intuitively, owning your accomplishments
- Taking a photo head shot and posting it online
- Writing 1-liner, 1 paragraph and 1 page that describes what results you achieve
- Free and low-cost design, imagery and website options
Spirit:
- What colors, images, words, phrases represent as consciousness archetypes
- Describing on an energetic level who you are and what is important to you
- How branding helps to attract and filter potential clients
Month 11: Cycles of Evolution
Earth:
- Reflecting upon what you’ve learned so far, what skills, knowledge and awareness you’ve gained or mastered
- What repetitive patterns have showed up for your clients, in your content?
- What chapters are finished, what wants to live on, what is calling out for a new form?
Spirit:
- The eternal soulful part of yourself knows that everything expands, spirals and returns for a new level of understanding. This is true for you and for your business.
- When we let go of the idea and desire ‘now it is done’, we hold open space for new ideas, new connections and pathways
- Give yourself permission to change your mind at any time, no one says this is what you have to do forever, actually you probably won’t
Month 12: Stay True to Your Power
Earth:
- Envisioning what’s next for your soulful business
- Creating an intuitive vision board for your next year
- What’s trending in the marketplace, what’s trending inside you?
Spirit:
- Envisioning what’s needed next in your personal and professional development
- How much further have you walked the journey and what can you share about it now?
How is this year-long group program structured?
Twice Monthly Zoom Calls
1st Zoom call: focuses on the spiritual realm, who this conscious business is calling you to become. You will be invited to go within, reflect, heal, integrate and expand.
2nd Zoom call: focuses on practical exercises to move your business off the drawing board into the world.
Online Forum for Discussion, Video and Written Content
Between our live calls, login to a private, online circle inside my 1 Million Empaths community – on a free app for your phone. This is where I load weekly video teaching and thought-provoking questions and exercises. It’s your forum to share ideas and thoughts with each other. You’re welcome to ask other members to review something you wrote, agree to beta-test each other’s offerings, partner to provide referrals and celebrate successes!
Weekly Email Q&A
Submit one business, personal or spiritual growth question each week and on Mondays, I post my responses in the online forum for everyone to view and comment.
Scheduled Co-Working Time
I’ll share a weekly Zoom link for anyone who wants to log-on, briefly say hi and then silently work on our own entrepreneurial projects for an hour. Independent yet together, this is a great way to schedule regular time to move your vision forward.
Dates and Times:
The next cohort for this program will begin February 2021. Sign up below to receive an email notice when I begin to accept applications in December 2020.
If you can’t make a live call, will there be recordings?
I highly recommend you set aside time to be on at least one of the two live calls every month. Both are better, but I know life sometimes comes up. This is where the synergy, learning and magic happens, although I will make recordings available to everyone in the group. The first 30 minutes of the call will be my teaching and then we reserve the next hour for you to bring actual business questions, scenarios and challenges to the group for facilitated coaching and brainstorming.
What will you need to participate?
- Laptop or tablet with camera and microphone
- Reliable Internet connection
- A physical journal
- Cell phone with camera or a digital camera
- Blank paper and any other supplies you might like to get creative
- A dedicated ‘office’ space. This could be a separate room or even a table and chair in quiet corner where you go to spend time on your business. You have space for writing, planning, outlining ideas, tracking your progress.
Will there be other expenses?
I will keep a running list of free or low-cost resources for new entrepreneurs. Looking at what I spent my first year, I wish I had been more reserved. For example, I invested over $1000 on a website before I even served one client, because I thought I needed to have that online presence to be credible. Note: I changed my company name a year later, so that $1000 website doesn’t even exist anymore.
You don’t need to have a website or an email list to be in this program, although it’s fine if you have either. We will take a month-long dive into branding and be working on authentic content marketing throughout, so you will get exposure to know when and how to develop a web presence. I use a dozen pieces of software to run my business, so I’m well-versed to answer questions about common tech tools.
What’s the investment for this program?
Launching your own spiritual, holistic, wellness or creative business is an investment in yourself and your community. Any time you spend gaining new skills, improving your public speaking, writing and communications, making valuable connections with others in your field – is time worth spent.
For this cohort, I’m seeking those who’re excited to commit the next year to exploring the path less traveled. To step over new thresholds again and again, only to discover that you had the entrepreneurial spirit within you the whole time.
I offer two payment choices, so you can pick the right resource. If you’ve had some prior business experience, the wisdom circle may provide the right community support and idea sharing to nurture your new venture. If you’re new to the business world, or if you wish to accelerate the progress of your start-up, the wisdom circle + monthly 1:1 coaching session may be the ticket.
As with any financial investment, if you share decision-making with a significant other, I ask that you send them this link, invite them to look at the details and discuss whether there is a willingness on their part to back you with time, energy, emotional support, and financial investment. If you make those decisions yourself, please do your due diligence.
After July 25, program fees are non-refundable regardless of attendance and will be auto-withdrawn on the same day each month for a year. In the case of a massive life change outside your control, we can discuss applying the payments from this program as a credit towards the next cohort or 1:1 coaching.
Here are the details of each package:
Option 1:
Wisdom Circle: $150/month
12 payments for a total of $1800
Includes:
- bi-weekly Zoom class + group coaching/brainstorming
- online forum with weekly video content, articles, tools and exercises
- share and receive feed-forward from other members
- beta-test each other’s offerings, collaborate and cross-pollinate
- group co-working hours for self-accountability
- weekly Q&A responses
Option 2:
Wisdom Circle + 1:1 coaching session: $200/month
12 payments for a total of $2400
Includes:
- bi-weekly Zoom class + group coaching scenarios
- online forum with weekly video content, articles, tools and exercises
- share and receive feed-forward from other members
- beta-test each other’s offerings, collaborate and cross-pollinate
- group co-working hours
- weekly Q&A responses
- 12 individual coaching calls with Bevin to focus on just your business
- individual coaching calls can focus on tech training, writing copy for your website, finessing the flow during client sessions, intuitive brand development, having mindful sales conversations, whatever is most helpful for you
What will you gain from this Wisdom Circle?
- Understand and put in place deep business roots, creating a strong foundation
- Expand yourself spiritually, personally and professionally
- Reflect on your personal journey for clues to your niche and message
- Conduct market research to learn the language of your clients
- Test ideas to find the sweet spot between the needs of your clients and how you love to serve
- Grow your confidence and voice by sharing your story and insights online
- Select the right online platform to feature your unique message
- Learn and use free or low-cost tech and resources to minimize expenses
- Work through common fears and blind spots that novice entrepreneurs face
- Connect with a network of like-minded sensitive souls
- Serve clients and apply the learning forward from these experiences
- Learn to thrive while you serve
- Sculpt your unique business masterpiece