Storm Trouble - waiting to be rescued.

While this is really off topic, I feel compelled to include this in
the spirit of the holidays that are soon upon us…
Last week Thursday night we had a terrible wind storm
in the Seattle area knocking out power to about 1 million homes.
I spent 5 days without power which for me also means no water.
While that was personally a challenge, I was so incredibly grateful
for the power being on last night when I came home last night.
What is so interesting is the way a natural disaster can affect your
life.  Basically as we learned from Katrina, no one is coming to rescue
you for awhile but even after that I had not taken as many steps as
I could have to be more prepared.  While the workers are making
a tremendous effort, the bottom line is that we just expect to be
rescued by them.  It particularly stuck me when I ventured to
Downtown Seattle yesterday that had barely been touched by
the storm.  Everything was as normal.  It hit me when I saw
a woman in a fur coat draped in shopping bags and having
a stressful conversation on her cell phone about some holiday
thing.  I wondered if she knew there were people still without
power - heat and light- in their homes and may not have
it back until after Christmas.
While there was a great relief effort and some community
support, I was amazed at how people could just go on
with their lives as if nothing happened.
I kept wondering what it would be like if even half of the people
in Seattle had come out with their work clothes on how long would
it take to clean up all of the trees and get the power back on.

I was also started wondering about if this is what people who survived Katrina felt like or what homeless people felt like - forgotten.

How can the world sit by when a family is alone in the dark and the cold?

I also heard the update on how many billions Iraq is costing us which made me further question just what we are doing on the planet.

Well I guess this could be the never ending saga but what comes to mind is the title of a book called “Bowling Alone:The Collapse and Revival of American Community” by Robert D. Putnam .

Are you bowling alone? Are we all bowling alone?

Posted in News | 1 Comment »

The Dark Side of Helping

The massage profession is part of the helping professions. Many massage therapists work in the field because of following their calling to help (see article online at www.massagetherapycareers.com). When we help others it fills our needs to feel needed. When we can give to others what we never got for ourselves, it can help heal our wounds.

We build a practice around the need to be needed but the thing is that when you are busy feeling needed by your massage clients and practice (or job), you are ignoring what you really need and that is too feel more vibrant and alive. Being a Massage Therapist is also a personal business. We touch complete strangers in hopes that that will take away their pain or help them feel better. It is difficult to not start thinking that it is us that is doing that for someone as it allows us to feel powerful. Well no one is that powerful. The person is feeling better, yes because they were given a massage but they were ready to be touched.

Getting your need for acknowledgment and being needed from your massage practice can influence the outcome of your sessions and effect the success of your business.

One of the biggest things you can do for yourself is to begin to understand - How do you help? I have written a series of questions to start looking into some of the reasons why we are drawn to helping. It is on my website www.massagepracticebuilder.com

Other resources on helping:

 Enabling: The dark side of helping - Massage Therapy Journal

Caretaking : the Hidden addiction in bodywork at presencingsource.com

Posted in Ethics, Peer Supervision, The Code of the Caretaker, The Wealthy Massage Therapist | No Comments »

Making a Living Online

Making a living online is one of the best ways to create passive income.

It is now easier than ever and anyone can do it. You don’t have to be a programmer or computer expert. In fact most of those people only know how to make a website - they don’t know how to get traffic and get those visitors to make “your most wanted response”.

Sitebuildit! is the amazing software tool and hosting package that not only supplies the technology but also the know how.

If you don’t know what business you want to start it helps you brainstorm different topics to find the one that will be the most profitable. And if you have some ideas about what you want to do, it helps you take that from an idea to a successful business step by step.

You see Sitebuildit! is a system - a complete business development system that helps you in every step of the way - from brainstorming to developing content to ways to make money from your concept.

There are so many different ways to make money online - one of my favorite being using google adsense. Most still are not understanding this concept and it is really unbelievable. All you have to do is find something that you are an expert at - what do you love to talk about, read about, learn about or share with others??
If you think you don’t have anything to write about or talk about then stop thinking - it is just your thoughts telling you that. It isn’t really true. Everyone has something that can be made into a website. Take a look at some of the ideas that people are coming up with using the Sitebuildit! System and take a look at some of the results people are getting!

• Google adsense then lets you set up an account with them and gives you the code you need to use to put their ads on your website. These ads will be targeted towards the topic keywords of your website so they will be ads that are related to the content of your site. So when someone clicks on the ad - you get paid a small percentage of the ad! Yes it is that easy. It took me a year of reading about this until I implemented them on my site www.thebodyworker.com. I had heard of the program but didn’t think it could really work because I didn’t think anyone would click on those ads. I couldn’t be any farther from the truth!

There are also other ways to make money

• selling products through affiliate programs such as amazon.com (you get paid a certain percentage of the purchases that people make when you recommend products)
• sell your own ebook- you can write your own manual or book and sell it to others and have them download it digitally.
• Sell other products that you have created
• Get referral fees from restaurants or hotels or other services you recommend

The list really is endless. If you can imagine it , you can make money on it!

And Sitebuildit! can guide you step by step with their unbelievable amount of support and information on how to do this.

If you are interested in learning more take the Video Quick Tour Now. and don’t hesitate to ask me any questions you have about this.

Posted in Websites for Massage therapists | No Comments »

Why do you want a website?

Most people just say they want a website but don’t really think about why they need one.

Today if you are in business- whether you are just starting up, wanting to grow your business, you need a website.

A website can help you find new clients. To do that, you need to have a website that gets you to the top of the search engine results and then has a attractive description that gets the reader to click the link to your website. You then need to have a website that has the information that they are looking for to solve their problem or answer their question. The way to do that is through creating content- providing them with enough information to build trust to get them to call for the appointment!

A great example of a website is from this massage therapist from Deservingbodymassage.com. This is a great example of a website with great content about what they do. In particular, I love the way they have talked about the benefits of massage!

The other thing a website can do is build credibility. You can put the address on all of your flyers and business cards and provide more in-depth information about what you do. Your current clients and medical professionals that refer to you will have someplace to refer people to learn more about you.

When you know what the focus is of your website, you can then create a website geared towards doing those things.

Posted in Websites for Massage therapists | 3 Comments »

The myth of goal setting

One of the reasons why I don’t really like business plans is that they are only a general overview of what you want to do. Most people will make a business plan and then never look at it because they don’t really know what to do with it.

The business plan outlines usually reflect unrealistic expectations. We overestimate how much we can do in one year and underestimate what we can do in 10 years. We set ourselves up for failure. Then we can say - we tried that and that didn’t work so I won’t do that again. We continue to beat ourselves up and fail to reach our (un)reachable goals. We give up easily.

It is kind of like planting a seed, watering it and taking good care of it and then digging it up every so often to see if it is growing! You kill it then!

Our intentions are the emotions behind the goals. It is the reason for doing things. It is the passion that carries you through the steps to success. Why do you want to do anything? What’s the real reason - not just the “I need the money” or “I want to help others”. Under these superficial reasons, there is usually a deeper reason - a deeper need for something. Most everything we do is to fill a need - the need for attention, love, respect, nurturing, connection. Discovering the real reason for doing things can help to diffuse the intensity of the feelings connected with the goal and help us to get out of our own way.

The other part of goal setting is to set reasonable, achievable goals. Set something that you know you can accomplish each day can help build your self confidence so that you can keep taking bigger and bigger steps. To do this you also need to set ACTION Steps to go along with the goals.

Like having the goal : “I want 20 clients a week”.

What does that really mean? What do you have to DO to get that many clients?

It is ofen overwhelming to just think about that feat- 20 clients - so often we don’t do anything to get them in the door. We just start to think that it will magically happen and then when no one shows up we start feeling depressed and think we aren’t very good and the whole thing snowballs into who knows what.

What action are you going to take to get one client is a much simpler achievable goal. Make a phone call. Talk to someone in the elevator or parking lot. Write an email to someone.\ Write down all of the really easy things you can do -the steps you can take to getting one new client and take the steps one by one. If one doesn’t work it doesn’t necessarily mean that that tactic won’t work. Don’t make assumptions about what could be happening when you don’t get any response.

What are some simple actions you can take today?

And then after you take them -celebrate! You did it. See how it builds your self confidence.

Posted in Building Your Practice, Starting Your Practice | No Comments »