Healing Arts Biz Academy

It’s a question a whole lot of us asked as we finished school, finally passed a licensing test, or held your newly minted professional license in your hand.

Where do I start my life as a massage therapist? Where do I start to set up my own massage therapy practice?

Here’s the answer: you start with you.

You don’t start with location.

You don’t start with modalities.

Believe it or not, you don’t start with marketing.

You start with you.

What kind of business owner are you likely to be? Strengths, experience, skills, places you’ll need to ask for help.

What kind of business do you want to set up? Values, mission, role in the community, place in your life?

What kind of work do you want to do? Relaxation, rehabilitation, soul support, body maintenance?

What kind of person do you want to work with? Young, middle-aged, elder, athlete, living with chronic conditions, struggling with body acceptance?

You need to know the answers to these questions before you can make good decisions about where you want to be, how much your want to charge, and (yes) how best to market your practice.

The good news is you don’t have to go anywhere to answer these questions! All of the “research” can be done from the comfort of your couch / beach chair / fire ring deep in the woods. Anywhere you can get all-the-way in touch with yourself, your true self.

Answer these kind of questions and you will have a rock solid foundation to a successful practice.

“If we had known it wasn’t possible, we wouldn’t have done it,’ Mr. Bathily says amusedly. ‘And had I known it would have taken this long to make this amount of money, I would have stopped.“

Building dreams takes more time and work than we usually imagine when we get started. 

He eventually spent a long and difficult year drafting his business plan “alone in [his] room with [his] newborn daughter…’

 But if you’re going to build something amazing, if you’re going to make a difference you’re going to find yourself putting in time and energy (and doing things you don’t automatically enjoy) because you must do this thing.

For 10 years now, the result is Dolima, Senegal’s second-largest dairy brand under the milk production company La Laiterie du Berger (LDB). It’s been a thriving social enterprise for some 500 Fulani families in the country’s northern region. 

Dream big and be willing to do the work to make it happen.