Some of you may recall that a while back I mentioned a big new project I was working on- well it has arrived! Hoorah! Hoorah! Meet Adventures in Well-Being, a blog and digital magazine. The first issue of the magazine will be out in December, but in the meantime we’ll have weekly blog posts to give you something to chew on.

At Adventures in Well-Being we’re dropping the dogma and re-defining the good life. We believe that food is not the enemy, movement isn’t an annoying obligation, work doesn’t have to be a four letter word, and spirituality can be put to good use in our daily lives.

To read more about why I decided the health, wellness, and personal growth worlds needed a new voice, you can check out our very first blog post here. And to read more about what on earth we mean when we talk about dropping the dogma, well just head on over here.

It’s free to subscribe and will have lots of juicy goodies. If you want to be sure not to miss the first issue and to be a part of this community as it revs up, then head on over and subscribe. We’d love to have you in the tribe.

And for those of you who have been such loyal and active readers over here at The Well Practice and who are bummed that it’s not still a more active blog, you can read plenty more from me over at Adventures in Well-Being, as it’s where I’ll be doing the vast majority of my writing these days.

Wow time sure does fly! The Practice Abundance Course opens to students from March 17th to March 20th, er, that’s two days away!

So just a quick post to point you to the sneak peek resources in case you missed them.

You want the complete course outline? You got it. Here’s all the information about all the goodies we’ll be learning over the next three months.

And if you’re wondering how this whole online course thing works, and what kind of support it includes, well that’s right over here.

Those of you who read the blog know me pretty well by now, but for you new readers, this is where you can find out all about who I am and decide if I’m the kind of person you’d want to learn from.

If you think you might be interested get on the list to be notified when we open for enrollment. I’m only taking on a small number of students this go around, so if you think it might be for you I’d mark your calendar.

THE LOVE:

Over and over again here’s the story I always hear from wellness practitioners about why they decided to study what it is they currently practice: One day it occurred to them that if they ever truly wanted to party with Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton that they would have to A. have a job that made a TON of money and B. have a job that was sexy and flashy enough that all the VIP clubs would want to take them straight to the front of the line and comp them all the overpriced champagne they could drink.

So, with that goal in mind they sat down at a desk and made a list of all the jobs that would fulfill both requirements A and B. Turns out acupuncturist, massage therapist, naturopathic doctor, yoga teacher, therapist [enter your modality here] wound up being at the top of the list, so off they went to school and upon graduation they started partying with spoiled celebrities and lived happily ever after…

Sound familiar?

No.

Exactly. When you decided to study whatever it is you practice some part of your being- your heart, your body, your gut, your mind, your spirit, or perhaps all of the above- called out to you and said, “Yes. This.” and you dove into it not for any promise of what life would look like after graduation, but for the love.

And it was easy to bask in the love while you were in school. You were surrounded by like minded people who shared your same passion and you were all diving headlong into work that was coming straight from your heart.

But I’ve found that after graduation things change. There’s still the love, of course, but it often gets silenced by a sneaking and very unpleasant feeling that you’re now in the business of convincing people to pay you. Which sucks. It’s hard to love that feeling.

I think what happens is a version of “deer in headlights” syndrome. There you are, basking in the glow of a concentrated period of time spent with colleagues just gleefully geeking out on what you love about what you do, and then you come back to Earth. Where not everyone knows just how endlessly fascinating fascial anatomy, or Udayana Badhna, or the joys of using intersection needling points can be, and so you wind up feeling like an arm-twister.

What are you supposed to say to potential clients? “No really! This work can change your life! Just hand over some money and you’ll see- it’s amazing!” Depending on the tone you’ve become a used car salesman at best and a cult leader at worst. And so you retreat. You hope that your love for your work and the tremendous value it has to offer will shine through, but you’re not sure how to get the word out without feeling like a sleazoid.

THE PROBLEM:

Our schools, while great at teaching us how to be highly skilled practitioners, seem to be at a loss about mentioning that we need to actually know how to get clients through the door (i.e. manage to pay our bills doing this thing we love so much and are really pretty good at.)

Don’t get me wrong, I love our schools for creating places where more and more generations of practitioners can be trained to positively impact the world. I love, love love that. I adore it. Really. However, I also wish- forgive me for my bluntness- that they would take their heads out of their collective asses and find a way to give this skill set to their students before graduation (really, honesty give them what they need, not mess around with telling people useless things like, “You should have a business card.”)

And so here’s my rant. I recently received an email from an acupuncturist where she told me about how her school constantly repeated the mantra, “In 5 years, 50% of you won’t be working as acupuncturists anymore” to the students. That is all. They never followed that sentence with one that started, “so here’s how you can avoid being a part of that 50%…” Gee thanks guys, the future’s feeling pretty bright now! Here’s my tuition check- or shall I just flush it down the toilet!? To the schools I would like to respectfully say: Don’t take our money, put us through your schools, tell us how we’ll likely fail, and then send us out into the world with no attention paid at all to how we might avoid becoming the aforementioned statistic.

What is wrong with this picture? Why are they such defeatists? What do they think the awful statistics are about? That people who studied acupuncture don’t actually care about acupuncture? That acupuncture doesn’t actually have much to offer people? That they tend to have lazy or flaky graduates? Or could it maybe, just possibly, be because people who love what they do and are committed to sharing it with the world enter that whole private practice thing with little to no idea of how to do that successfully? Maybe? Ya think? Ok, rant over.

AND SO…

In general I find that complaining about what other people should be doing is an ineffective strategy for creating positive change. I can’t really think of many times that straight up complaining got anyone very far. Imagine if Rosa Parks only complained loudly and ceaselessly amongst her friends about how unjust sitting in the back of the bus was, without ever plopping herself in the front of that bus and thereby claiming her own power to make a change? The former strategy wasn’t likely to change history. The latter? Pretty effective.

Ok, so I’m no Rosa Parks. I think that’s fairly obvious. However, because of my own experience of struggling through my first three years in practice and then falling in love with practice building (no one is more surprised than me…) there does happen to be one thing I can do to make some change. I figure if I can pass on the tools and create a place for a supportive community of complementary and alternative medicine providers to gather, then maybe we’ve got a shot at changing the lame statistics. And if we change the lame statistics, then we’ll have a lot more practitioners around and a lot more people getting the help they need.

And so I built the Practice Abundance Course. It’s an online course that is the result of nearly ten years in practice, starting three practices from scratch, one ebook, one mega manuscript for a printed book, a year and a half blogging about practice building, and lots of conversations with practitioners who felt just as helpless and hopeless as I did when I was starting out. I designed it to be the FULL course that our schools left out, coupled with community warmth and support.

It will be open to new students from March 17th to March 20th (kicking it off between St. Patrick’s Day and the first day of spring seemed fortuitous enough…) and I’ll only be taking on a small number of students this first round. The soonest it would open again is this summer, so if you think this might be for you I’d get on the list to get all the delicious freebie information about it that I’ll start sending out this week.

Happy practice building!

Every once and a while I have an epiphany that I’ve had maaaaany times before, and I realize that maybe (just maybe) I should listen to it this time.So what was it? “Do the stuff you’re good at and hire others for the stuff that they’re good at, so that you don’t waste your time on learning curves that you don’t care about.”

It sounds so simple, no big deal right? Well underlying that epiphany was the more crucial, “The little part of your brain that is terrified of change- the lizard brain- will shape shift in any way it needs to in order to stop all progress and make you think you are sane for doing so.”

Let me back up a little bit. On January 14th to 15th I was in New York City to go to a Triiibes event (a two day meet up of those of us who are on Seth Godin’s social network, Triiibes), and then to grab dinner with Seth himself and the rest of the Triiibe (!), and go to his first talk about his new book, Linchpin. I read Linchpin on the train ride down and then lived and breathed the ideas in it for two very inspiring days. If you haven’t read Linchpin, first, go get a copy. Second, here’s a very brief synopsis of the ideas that I’m referring to in this post:

Here’s what Seth’s book is a call to action for: Do work that matters, solve interesting problems, connect, create, lead, give the world a gift (preferably several)- in other words, be a linchpin.

Here’s what’s holding us back: First, you don’t have to be a worker drone for the industrial era/capitalist machine anymore, but unfortunately it is what you were trained to be in school. Schools evolved to create complaint workers. (”Color inside the lines!”)

Second, your lizard brain, otherwise known as “the resistance”, is the first part of our brain that evolved millions of years ago. Its main concern is keeping you safe- so it fears ALL change like it’s a life or death issue, and takes any steps it can to stop your progress.

So I leave New York feeling full of clarity and excitement since I also happen to have this big project brewing that I want to launch in March. What perfect timing! I’m finally putting all I’ve learned from my 10 years in practice, blogging here for over a year, one mega manuscript for a printed book, one free ebook, and many conversations with my fellow CAM providers about their own triumphs and trials into one master place: an online course and community on how to grow and sustain a practice that not only pays your bills, but also feeds your spirit.

Yup, it’s a biggie (more info to follow in my next post…) and I’m feeling pretty confident that my fresh perspective on the lizard brain will keep it from interfering in my course. I’ve got your number lizard brain! This project is going to launch on the day I promised it would launch and no little internal saboteur will get in my way!

Turns out I’ve gotten very good at spotting certain signs that I’m being controlled by the lizard brain. When I spend an hour at the computer constantly cycling between checking my email, Facebook, and Twitter- the lizard is in control. When I start off working on something essential and 15 minutes later I notice that I’ve gone down some rabbit hole and am doing something pointless like cleaning out my sock drawer- yup, lizard brain. And when I keep complaining about how crazy busy I am (I’m a single mom! I have to keep my practice afloat! I need to write on my blog! I’m trying to launch this big thing!) and yet, somehow, I miraculously find time to hang out with my friends and to never miss an episode of 30 Rock? Lizard brain.

Honestly I’m in awe at how much progress I’ve made since reading Linchpin. It’s amazing how much less time things take when you separate out the pointless time wasters from the meaningful work.

This is where my lizard brain went undercover and got me.

Lizard brain (in disguise as sane brain): “Well you know Brooke, if you’re going to build this thing you might as well do it right and build the whole thing on your own from scratch this time. It’ll save you money and you’ll learn a lot about the technical details.”

Brooke (thinking this is her sane brain): “That’s a great idea! I’d feel so accomplished and proud of myself, PLUS then I’d have an excuse to waste endless hours on some crap that I don’t care about and am no good at, which will keep me from doing the important stuff. Thanks, sane brain, for helping me to find a loophole to get out of all this progress I’ve been making!”

Yeah, it didn’t go so well. At the end of all the frustrating time spent trying to understand CSS I had exactly no website, and lots of time lost on the important stuff that I actually enjoy.

Lizard brain: 1
Brooke: 1

For now it’s a tie. I’ve hired the lovely Taryn Wallis over at Phenomenoodle to set up some of the stuff I’ll need on a platform that I know and love (Wordpress). Time to keep it simple. Thanks to Taryn for seeing my distress flags on Twitter and reaching out- glad to have you on my team.

For the rest of you, dear readers, where can you get help on the stuff that’s not your strength and save yourself the angst already?

And- most importantly!- where is your lizard brain shape shifting and keeping you from doing the important work? How can you get back to it?

Parting tip one: my lizard brain and I have been talking lately as in, “Hi Lizard Brain, I know you’re scared and threatened and all, but I really don’t think I need to check my email for the 20th time this hour. I’m pretty sure nothing important has come through. But thanks.” It’s working (for now…)

Parting tip two: The single best time management technique that I’ve found is the Pomodoro technique. It’s what’s kept time wasters at near zero, and I can make progress without feeling like I’m beholden to some super complex organizational/time management protocol. It’s simple and it works like a charm.

2009 has been very good to me, and before the clock strikes 12 tomorrow night I wanted to send you all a brief shout out of gratitude for all your support this year. Spot the ways you helped me (and you) to thrive this year:

1. You read Practice Building 101 and/or the blog and sent me delicious emails to let me know how much it helped you. Spectacular words like “lifesaver” and “THANK YOU” (yes, in all caps), and “joyous” were used, which made me feel like my work is worth something, and that is pretty much the best feeling ever.

2. You emailed me to tell me how delighted you were to find The Well Practice after Googling the words “HARO” and “gyrotonic” together. This may be the funniest search engine word combo to lead to my door thus far.

3. You embraced me as your Rolfer in New Haven thereby giving me good news to report on the blog from the ‘practice building in a crap economy’ front. This had the additional perk of saving me from having to report that I was a failure. Whew.

4. You shared my writing with someone you know who could benefit from it and sung The Well Practice’s praises. (Most recently big thanks to Burton Kent of Acupuncture Clinic Marketing. I finally solved the mystery of where all the new acupuncturists were coming from when one of your readers emailed me and told me you’d shared a link with your list. Thanks!)

5. You (Jenn Givler, Honora Wolfe, and Dan Clements and Tara Gignac) wrote fab guest posts!

6. You are one of the following people whose work inspired the hell out and kept me moving forward. Huge thanks to Seth Godin, Lissa Boles, Chris Guillebeau, Jonathan Fields, Havi Brooks, Naomi Dunford, Hugh MacLeod, Melissa Pierce, and Vanessa Scotto (who is amazing even if her website isn’t link-able yet).

7. You turned one year old on October 17th! (You being my blog)

8. You sat across from me over Indian food, or a latte, or in a park, or over the phone, and poured your heart out about what you really needed to be happy in your practice.

9. You gave me this nifty “thank you as a list” idea in your charming Christmas card.

10. You don’t know this, because I haven’t bared my soul to most of you in a moody cafe or anything, but you helped me climb out of the rubble of a very, very challenging 2008 by showing up here and caring about what I had to offer. Thank you.

And last but not least, here were the top posts of the year:

Feeling Grateful (and Hearing Voices)

Un-Guru

Non-Sensical Panic Attacks

Kicking it Off On the Cheap

Practicing Radical Generosity

Why Does the Word “Networking” Make Us All Want to Shower With A Brillo Pad?

Happy New Years! Sending you all lots of love and happy practice wishes for 2010!

At long last, the fully gut renovated (free!) ebook is ready for download. Practice Building 101: The I-Don’t-Have-to-Feel-Like-an-Icky-Car-Salesman-Guide to Growing a Thriving Wellness Practice is now yours for the low, low price of $0. As some of you know, I first put out a free practice building ebook nearly a year ago. It was definitely full of lots of great info, but badly in need of editing and desperately in need of a massive design overhaul. And now it’s here! It’s fully re-written and ready to go. I could go on and on about what its perks are and who can benefit from it, but that’s all here. So I won’t repeat myself. Needless to say, if your practice needs a kick in the pants, get it, read it, use it.  

For those of you who haven’t read the old version: Phew! Because who wants to read something twice, and this one is much, much, much- well it’s just far superior to the first version.

For those of you who did read the old version: I can’t really give you a big old reading assignment, can I? If you already read it and don’t want to dive into the new one- what can ya do? I can’t really blame you. However, here are some reasons why you might bother to at least skim it:  

• Reese Spykerman, the designer extraordinaire, has done an amazing job with design and layout. So if you find yourself using the old ebook as a reference, this one will be much easier to navigate that way. Plus, it’s sooo much prettier. So- for me- at least click through the pages and marvel at what Reese has done. Lovely stuff.
• I’ve made the practice building categories much easier to navigate.
• Totally updated info- especially in the toolbox section. Blogs, video blogs, and podcasts have gotten some extra special attention.
• I pulled out anything I thought was extraneous to just getting the job done- that being the job of more paying clients walking through your door- so I kind of cut to the chase with this version.

My intention then, as now, was to create a comprehensive resource with no barriers (um, free) so that as many people as possible could get their hands on it and put it to use.

My mission with this website is to contribute to the tipping point of holistic healthcare to where it becomes the totally obvious thing that everyone chooses to use in their lives. My hope is to do this through helping people to thrive in their practices. So, if you read it and feel like it was worthwhile, please pass it along to anyone else you feel can benefit.

If you want extra brownie points (and an actual tangible reward) you can talk to the school you attended and let them know this is a free resource they can offer to their students. Come on, take pity on the soon to be grads. Remember how hard those days were? Oh, and as for the tangible reward: if you get Practice Building 101 on your school’s reading list, I’ll give you a free jumpstart coaching session. We’ll talk for an hour and figure out your game plan for getting you to waiting list levels of demand.

Many of you have been graciously asking me lately where this book of mine  (Practice Abundance: The Marketing-Phobe’s Guide to Building a Thriving, Heart-Based Wellness Practice) is and when it will hit the shelves. First of all, many thank yous for your interest and for reaching out.

Ah, the book. The short answer is that I don’t know when it will officially be ready, though I hope to release it in some way by late summer.

The long answer is that I really shouldn’t even say anything that resembles a tangible timeline (like, for example, typing the words late summer) because the process of birthing this book has been far less predictable than I would like. Creative processes will do that sometimes.

Here’s what I can tell you: The manuscript was completed and edited many months ago and that’s when I began opening my big mouth in the first place. I figured, hey, if it’s written and edited then it’s ready to go, right? Unfortunately, everytime I got close to shipping the thing off to the printer, my inner voice kept nagging at me, “not yet.” Argh! That dang inner voice. But what are you going to do? When the inner voice keeps saying the same thing, you listen. So I slowed down, started interviewing other practitioners to gather their stories, pulled together a free ebook from bits and pieces of the manuscript, began writing this blog, and, most recently, began the process of starting another practice from scratch. Collectively these things have informed the direction of Practice Abundance a great deal. In the spirit of making it a stronger piece, I’ve been re-editing it and I’m very grateful to have listened to that inner voice.

My hope for Practice Abundance is that it can spread far and wide and help as many wellness practitioners as possible to avoid the punishing experience I faced in my first three years of practice. My other overarching goal is and always will be that wellness, integrative medicine, holistic healthcare- call it what you like- can continue to gain momentum so that as many people as possible know that this whole world of options exists that can make their lives vastly more vibrant.

With those overarching goals in mind, I deeply want this book to be as useful and relevant as possible. I’m proud of my work and confident that it will deliver once it’s birthed into the world. I’ll keep you posted on the progress.

If you feel like you’re drowning out there and you don’t know how you’ll ever manage to pay your bills doing this thing you love so deeply, here’s what I can offer even if I don’t have a tangible book that you can hold in your hands:

The free ebook: My free ebook is (aaaaaah!) also in the process of being edited in the spirit of making something of very high quality, regardless of the $0 price tag. As I began editing it a few weeks ago, I admit it, I cringed. I feel like it is full of a lot of useful information, however it’s also cluttered and poorly edited. I’ll keep you posted on the release of the new and improved ebook, but in the meantime, please grab a copy here by clicking the ‘get the podclass now’ button. And yes, with the release of the new ebook it will be much easier to just grab the pdf from this site.

The “From Scratch” Chronicles: Right here on this handy dandy blog I’m chronicling my experiences (read: wipe outs and successes) in starting another practice from scratch. Subscribe to the blog by hitting the RSS button and you’ll be sure to catch all the updates. I’ve promised total honesty about the process, so there will be lots to learn from reading along.

Email me!: If you’re feeling lost at sea, please don’t hesitate to reach out and ask for help. Yes, I’m crazy busy these days, but I do want to hear from you and to be of service. The more specific you can be with your questions, the better I can help. You can find me at info [at] thewellpractice [dot] com (typed out to avoid evil spam bots…)

Thanks again for following along and for caring about my baby- I mean book- in the first place. Now go forth, keep the faith, and make that practice happen!

As you all may have read, I recently wrote a post that: A. Talked about why I’m out here writing this blog, and B. Gave me a shot to win a free ticket to the Social Media Success Summit which was offered by the very kind Chris Garrett.

Well folks, I did not win the aforementioned ticket. Sigh. I did get a shout out on Chris’s post when he announced the winner- which has got me feeling pretty good. It’s nice to feel like my story resonated. The good news is that the gracious winner, Charles of Wordful, has offered the additional free ticket to someone who can answer these questions for him. Yay! Here you go Charles:

1. What’s your single greatest challenge with blogging?

Writing is one of those activities for me where, as Chris Garrett said in a recent post, “Time seems to distort, my brain turns to sweet mush, and the words just arrive on screen.” Writing this blog is a great joy where I’ve finally found the marriage between my love for writing, and my long-time passion that there needs to be a bigger spotlight for the wild world of wellness; And that if we’re ever going to reach a tipping point where people line up at their local wellness center like they do at Starbucks, then practitioners are going to need some tools to thrive in their practices (and avoid experiencing what my first three years in practice were like). I’ve got the love, I’ve got the passion, and I’ve got the why.

What I don’t have is a very good social media strategy for how to get this blog to reach its tipping point. I’ve spent the last few years learning a lot about marketing. However, almost a year ago I decided to intentionally boycott all the classes and strategies. I started to feel the potential to become one of those people who is endlessly taking classes while postponing the doing of the thing. I decided that instead, I’d do the thing and strategize later. I knew this wouldn’t get my blog on the home page of Digg, but I wanted to take a step back. The result is that I’ve gotten boatloads of clarity about what marketing means to me, namely that all marketing actions can be heart-based, transparent, and rooted in integrity. However, I’m just emerging from my ‘no more classes’ hibernation, and I’m ready to take my own advice: No matter how wonderful you are at what you do, if you can’t connect it to the people who need what you have to offer, there’s no point. It’s time to be more conscious about connecting the thing to the people.

2. How will the Social Media Success Summit help you with that challenge?

That said, the Social Media Success Summit would be a wonderful way for me to emerge from hibernation by diving deeply into the Summit, and coming out with the best possible plan to take the blog from being a blip, to being of service. I know there are a boatload of things I need to do to get this blog on the radar, and hopping into the Summit would allow me focused time and education on how best to get it happening. I’ve greatly admired many of the teachers who will be presenting at the summit, and I would be honored and delighted to learn from them.

3. How do you envision your success online?

I decided a while back that I have no interest in being a guru. My intent with this blog, my book, whatever it is I do isn’t to build a platform so that I can demand exorbitant fees for speaking gigs. I don’t have all the answers and I never will, but what I do have is a natural love for connecting people to resources. Nothing makes me happier than seeing people thrive. My marker of success will be when I start hearing from large numbers of people that my work here helped them to grow thriving wellness practices with less of the pain we helper types normally go through with this process. I’d been over-the-moon-happy if this blog could grow/help a readership large enough that wellness schools need to sit up and take notice and- gasp!- give us the tools we need to succeed in our practices as a part of our educations. Until schools give us a bonafide education in more than just our modalities of choice (hello! We’re small business owners too!) there won’t be any Starbucks-esque lines outside local wellness centers.

So here’s the deal my fair readers- I was just about to sign myself up for a blog critique from the lovely Chris G, when he posted a contest to win the aforementioned critique, and a bunch of other fabulousness connected with the Social Media Success Summit. So this entry is to let you and Chris Garrett know why I want to nab the prize and bring back all the juicy info to you.

*Side note: It’s an amazing teacher line up and the delightful part is that you don’t have to travel- yahoo! Go forth and check it out- it’s a great opportunity to learn a boatload about social media. Without further ado- here’s my why me:

Before I found Rolfing, I was a sunk ship; A total wreck. Some of you know the whole story already, and for the sake of keeping the recap short, I can say simply that pre-Rolfing I was dealing with 22 years of chronic pain (I’d had a birth injury, not so fun), a jaw that was locked shut, doctors telling me I’d have to accept that I would be eating soft food for the rest of my life, and just general 92-year-old in a 22-year-old’s body unpleasantness.

Then I had the great good fortune to have my conventional medical doctor tell me that I had to get into meditation classes and someone’s bodywork office stat.

What!?! I’d had no idea that there were these other options. Because my wonky-ness had started with a birth injury, I’d had a lifetime of doctors generally scratching their heads at my chronic pain and other symptoms. But now there was this whole world of other options for getting well. Needless to say, after one session of Rolfing I knew my life had dramatically changed. I’ve been (mostly- I’m still human) pain-free and happily eating solid food for 12 years now.

But the thing that’s stuck with me most from my experience is this: why oh why didn’t I f@#*ing know that there was this whole world of other options sooner. Since my Rolfing hallelujah experience, I’ve been equally delighted with the discovery of many other genius modalities- homeopathy, Shiatsu, acupuncture, yoga, Gyrotonic- I could go on since I’m a wellness junkie… But each time I go back to that same initial reaction: more people need to know this exists.

The trouble is, there’s an art to letting the world know that something exists, and we wellness providers are trained only to be technicians. Then we’re pushed out into the world where we’re asked to be small business owners and tribe leaders. And yet, our schools give us little to no (or worse, incorrect) information on how to spread the word and sustain ourselves. 50% of acupuncturists are no longer in practice at the 5 year mark. The average career span of a massage therapist is 18 months. Are we flakes? Dim bulbs? No. We’re missing the foundational element that allows us to share our skills.

These days, I find myself in the incredibly happy position to be acting as a translator between the marketing world and the wellness world. I’ve fallen deeply in love with both for the same reason: you can change people’s lives.

While the word marketing often gives people an icky vibe in the wellness world (we need a new word!)- when its powers are used for good and not evil you can spread the ideas that matter; The ones that can change the world. We’re at an incredibly exciting time in history where suddenly it’s no longer the mega-corporations who have the only access to marketing platforms. It’s not a ‘who has the most dollars wins’ game anymore. Technology is rapidly evolving and gives every individual equal opportunity to create their own platform and spread their own ideas. The Social Media Success Summit is exactly the place where we can all learn how to use the tools that are at our fingertips, just waiting to be put to use for the higher good. I get goose bumps every time I think of what this means for the world- we’re on the cusp of some serious big-ness here.

This blog is my way to do my part to make sure that more people know these options in healing exist. For people to hear about them- wellness providers need to have thriving practices. Winning the grand prize for the Social Media Success Summit would fuel my passion and expand my toolkit so that I can help more of my wellness peeps get out there and connect to the people who need them. And for all of you blog readers out there who are working to grow your practice- get thee to the Summit- and enter this same contest to win for yourself!

Those of you familiar with my bio know that I was a Rolfing practitioner from 2000 to 2008, and that these days most of my time is spent raising my sweet boy and writing about my own adventures in practice building. My practices- in Napa and Sonoma, CA and in Brooklyn, NY- were built from scratch having moved to both of these cities without contacts, clients, or office space (or savings or trust fund- so I couldn’t afford to dawdle). It was the old throw a dart at a map, show up, and make it work routine. By throwing myself into the fire this way I learned a tremendous amount about practice building and even fell in love with it. My practice building experiences are the inspiration that led me to start this blog and to write my book.

But here’s the thing: what that means is that the last practice I started from scratch was in Brooklyn in 2004. The world has changed A LOT since 2004. There are huge upsides, thanks mainly to technology: Yelp! Wordpress! Zazzle! And one downside of note: the punishing economy. It’s occuring to me that to kick back and reflect from the perspective of the good ‘ol days is not the most authentic way to write this blog or to publish my book. I need to be out there with all ya’ll making it happen.

That brings me to the experiment: I just so happen to have moved to another new city where I don’t know anyone who isn’t family: New Haven, CT. I’m going to kick off a brand spanking new practice and write here about what exactly I do that both does and doesn’t work for me. Think of me as your very own guinea pig and read along to avoid my mistakes and copy my successes. I have the benefit of knowing how to grow a practice quickly, but the knowledge I’ve gained is my only upside. Everything else is starting from step one: I need office space, a website, business cards, and all the other uber important things that will get the word out about why the good people of New Haven should invest in Rolfing in a down economy.

Follow along with the blog posts and we’ll learn together! Click the shiny RSS button and subscribe so you don’t miss any of the ups and downs- I’ll be posting twice a week.

*side note: I just read The Think Big Manifesto and my brain was exploding with great ideas through the whole thing. It’s a good read if you’re interested in making a big impact by way of being totally authentic. Gotta love that.