Hobby or Business??
Is your massage practice a hobby or a business?
A hobby is something that drains money from your account rather than adding to it.
A hobby is something that brings you lots of joy, but little money.
Many massage therapists treat their business as a hobby - they don’t take it seriously. I have had so many people say how they can’t get enough clients but yet when I ask them what they are doing to market themselves, they say nothing…I have to get on that one.
A business requires a passion and purpose for doing things like a hobby does, but it also requires that you have a plan for making money.
Many massage therapists say that they are not in this for the money. This is the biggest part of the shadow side of the profession - not wanting to make money helping others.
Mikeann Valterra in her book “Why Women Earn Less: How to Make What You’re Really Worth” calls it Noble Poverty. We sacrifice ourselves for others thinking it will provide more meaning or that it is for the good of the world.
We somewhere along the way start to think that in order to have money we will have to sacrifice or give up something of ourselves. We start living a simple lifestyle saying that we don’t want to be a part of the corporate hustle. We start to think that having money is somehow wrong.
Our belief that not having money is noble is what keeps us stuck not having any money. We think that not having to work so hard will allow us to have more freedom.
But when you don’t have money you don’t have freedom.
How is not being able to pay your taxes and bills or retire doing a service for the world?
The root of money issues is really a self-esteem issue. How do we keep ourselves stuck by choosing the massage profession itself.
The more people start discussing their thoughts and beliefs about money, the sooner we can help change the struggling massage profession into one where money just flows.
July 22nd, 2006 at 7:03 am
I am a male in the field. I left an industry that I was in for 20 years. I left because I just could not see myself as a corp jockey for the rest of my life. I got into massage therapy to do something that I really believed in. I am clearly, as a male, a minority in this field. However so far I am doing ok. As far as the money aspect goes I have to admit it is a struggle. A struggle in the sense of wanting to give to much for so little. I am in this for self fulfillment, however I am a father of three and as I am not dellusional I need to make a living. Yet I have/had a hard time with value and when good is good. For example a client has paid me 55$hr, when a client does not react as to how I feel they should I would then think I am not doing a good enough service so then I would carry the session for another 15mins or 30. What I now know every client is different just because they are not passed out on the table does not mean we are not connected and the session is not great.
I am less then a year in the MT field and value and service have been my biggest dilemas. I have learned that what I am doing brings a lot of value for really a small amount of renumeration. I have developed the confidence in myself that when I am with a client I am the very best they have, how they do or do not react is personal to them and I should not worry or worse yet invade that personal space.
July 22nd, 2006 at 9:41 pm
This is always a tough one to deal with - knowing our own value and worth and not taking anything personally.
It is difficult to remember just what it is that we do for people when we are expecting some reaction or feedback from them.
I actually am one who does not work to relax people, but to get them more connected to their bodies in whatever form that is for them. I actually sometime feel like I am not doing my job when people fall asleep or come off the table being spaced out. But for whatever reason that is where they need to be to learn whatever it is that they need to learn about themselves.
When I find myself wanting to give too much to others, I try to stop and ask myself what it is that I am needing. I find that what I often try to do for others is what I really need for myself. I call this the “Code of the Caretaker” and have written about it often here. I even am working on two E-books with the “code” in mind - since everyone is in the code fever mode!
July 25th, 2006 at 5:32 am
This is a great topic. Do we charge what we are worth?? Is it noble to be poor?? Does anyone remember when your mom said you can love a rich man as easily as a poor man?? or whoever in other cases. But one of the things we do is give what we need? My questionis how do we find someone to give us what we need when our practice is new or our money is tight or our children are in college?? There is no finite amount of money in this world just finding your way into the thinking stuff is not always easy, it may be simple but not easy.
Let go and let the thinking stuff find you. That is were i always seem to find my abundance. When i believe i lack, I only lack more, When i believe i am abundant i only become more abundant. The challenge is my ego and self-sabbotaging ways which is in most of us.
So may i end this thought with wayne dyers grand words: Change the way you look at things and things will change.