The Big Lie and the Problem with Passion

When I went to wellness school in 1999, half way through the program I quit my full-time job and started seeing clients. My class mates clapped and cheered me on. I was following my dreams! I was going for it! I was finally going to make a living from my passion! No more boring corporate job! Waa hoo!

I attracted a surge of first clients, enough to make me think I knew what I was doing. But since I didn’t know anything about running a business or attracting clients in any systematic way, I wasn’t able to replicate it when those clients finished my program.  

 Darn it.

 And so I started to feel a wee bit down on myself.

 Solution? Get re-inspired! Work harder! See what everyone else is doing and try that!

 So I started to invest in more books, classes and pretty much anything that would get me feeling passionate again.

 Things like…

Spending time with  colleagues talking about my passion –  usually very long lunches under the guise of helping each other with our practice.

Spending even more time learning more about my passion – investing in books, classes, conferences and other continuing education in my modality to make me feel like a professional.

Spending countless hours reading up on the web, fussing with my website and checking out what my colleagues were doing.

To my surprise and increasing debt load, none of it helped me attract clients and actually help people.  

But I was passionate!

Looking back, I was engaged in busy work that felt productive but did nothing to move my practice closer to what I had envisioned for myself, my work and my quality of life.  

Hook, line and sinker, I had bought the big lie.

And here it is: If you’re passionate enough you will succeed.

Can I save you about three years of frustration, overwhelm and expensive trial & error?

Passion is a given. No one starts anything, let alone a private practice, without passion.

But passion alone is not enough to succeed. (Shocking, I know!)

The thing that connects you to your clients and the tribe that you were meant to serve, isn’t learning more about your modality or feeling passionate. (While it's important, it's not the bridge to the people you want to help.)

It is learning a few business skills and becoming good enough at marketing.

That is the only difference between the vast majority of passionate wellness pros who wish they were more successful and those who are passionate AND successful.

On Wednesday, January 19th at 3pm eastern I'll be talking more about this topic on a free teleclass about How to Transform a So-So Practice into Rock Star Status.

Click here to join this free call and reserve your place.

Wishing you continued health and success in 2011,

Karin

About the Author and WellProNet.org: Karin Witzig Rozell has been showing health and wellness professionals how to grow their businesses since 2003. She started as a nutrition counselor who knew a lot about nutrition, but not a whole lot about business and marketing. After learning some tough lessons she cracked the code and now her passion is transforming practitioners into profitable business owners using the power of good marketing.

In 2009, she expanded her private practice and launched The Wellness Professional Network http://wellpronet.org as the go-to place for practitioners to learn about all the real-world business stuff they never learned in wellness school like: messaging, marketing, making a great living. Karin lives in Upstate New York with her family – her son, two cats and a dog and works from home with her husband, Drew Rozell.