It is an understatement to say that my business changed when my daughter was born five years ago. But as I reflect, what appeared like a need for a new business model was a more profound need for a mindset shift to gratitude, creativity, and play that would allow me to align my next phase of life and business energetically.

I started feeling the need for a shift when I decided I wanted to invest in growing a family life as much as I wanted to succeed in my business. Until this decision, my energy was largely devoted to creating success with my business and serving my clients. Success for me was meeting my financial goals and doing whatever I could to help my clients feel better and have less physical pain by implementing more movement in their lives. Success looked like clients feeling better when they left my office, having repeat clients, and recurring revenue. I didn’t realize it until after the fact, but focusing on making money by “fixing problems” was burning me out and draining my energy. I was starting to lose my sense of joy in my love of movement, and starting to feel burnout creeping in. That was a big red flag: I needed a shift to reconnect and up-level my mindset, model, and energy!

When I got pregnant in 2016, my energy immediately started to shift, and I knew it would also be a catalyst for a shift in my business. I started preparing for a break and shifting my focus to taking care of myself and preparing for new responsibilities and experiences. This was also when I realized that my business model and my mindset needed to shift to grow with me into this new space in my life.

I knew I needed more than a new model or a new mindset. I needed new energy that re-inspired my sense of joy, gratitude and play in my life and business.

My business model was the first piece to shift, although in retrospect, my model and mindset were the same movement and made space for new energy! At the time, I had a brick-and-mortar private movement therapy business, and I had just finished my coaching certification and started integrating coaching with my clients. I saw in the coaching model an opportunity to shift the focus of my work and my clients’ results into a new space, based on this new energy of joy, opportunity, and potential. I also saw an opportunity to start to scale my methods out of the in-person one-on-one space so I could start to systematize my method and empower my client’s self-change process.

My goals for my business were to coach less, but more effectively and with inspired energy. And to create coaching systems supporting my clients’ self-change process and help me grow my business, thought leadership, and income without adding more hours. The first shift was to bring my husband into the business to take over the movement therapy in-person clients and then create new online content systems to support new growth in my clients’ self-change process. You can listen to the podcast on this transition here.

But the big energy shift came when my daughter arrived. All of a sudden, my whole energy shifted to her. And more specifically, I dropped into a different kind of energy- one of awe, gratitude, and joy coupled with complete exhaustion. Even though I had planned a six-month maternity leave from clients, I was still running my business behind the scenes and tried to keep working and “pushing forward” and working in the same way. But it quickly became clear that the kind of “pushing and hustle” that I had done in the past to create success was no longer a match for this new energy I was embodying in my life. And trying to switch between the two created stress and inner conflict between “being with her” and feeling like “I should be working”. I realized I wanted alignment between this expanded energy in my life and my business. And I needed to shift my mindset in my work as well. All of the business model changes I had been reaching towards intuitively had a mindset and energy root.

I thought becoming a mom would complicate things, but it clarified what mattered to me and paved the way for claiming a new aligned path in my coaching business.

I wanted to bring the experience of being in the moment, feeling deep love and gratitude, and focusing on the joy and creativity I felt with my daughter into my business. I wanted to make more space for joy and movement in my life and business. This meant shifting from a “therapy” to a “coaching” model and allowing the energy flow I felt being with my daughter to change the energy and possibilities I held for my clients. The more I yielded to love and connection, gratitude, joy, and enjoying just being with my daughter, the more I was able to help my clients claim this energy in their lives as well.

This is how the Move From Center Podcast and movement was born for me. I realized that the real secret sauce for me in having holistic success as an entrepreneur in the transformation space is that I get to create my movement! I get to keep transforming and shifting as my life changes. And “being” in my creative flow of change, joy, and gratitude is the aligned embodied energy practice that keeps me in integrity with my values, inspires my clients, and creates movement in my business!

Cheering you on,