Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in personal development but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Francesca Dattilo, founder of Francesca Dattilo Counselling, Coaching, Consulting, located in Ottawa, ON, Canada.
What's your business, and who are your customers?
I am in the business of leaving this world a better place through my connections with people. As a therapist and transformational life coach, I teach my clients how to take control of their minds, be in the driver's seat of their emotions, master their stress, get and keep healthy relationships and live their boss lives.
As a therapist, I work with adults 21 and above living with anxiety, depression, chronic stress, codependency, and relationship issues. As a coach, I work with women bosses (executives, managers, and business owners) who have lost their way in an area of their lives and lost connection with themselves. I help them find their way by showing them how to reconnect with themselves to create authentic success in that area.
I love to teach, so I also provide individual and group Dialectical Behaviour Therapy training to other mental health professionals who want to serve their clients and themselves better. I help others to help others.
Tell us about yourself
I began my practice in 2008. I was very motivated to work with women who were trauma survivors in despair and who demonstrated their despair through self-harm and suicidal behavours. I wanted to help them live lives worth living.
This was very personal for me as I grew up with a mother who attempted suicide many times. I decided to balance the heaviness of this work with coaching. I became certified as a Transformational Life Coach and merged spirituality and metaphysical processes with my psychological interventions. I re-incarnated my business again after reconnecting with myself in 2021 to its current state.
What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?
My biggest accomplishment as a business owner was to stop listening to all the experts on how I should be running and building my business and turned to the expert inside of me, my intuition, and my higher self, to call the shots. As a result, I have a steady flow of ideal clients and more work/life balance, and I am so much happier!
What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?
When you are a business owner, it is so easy to let your business run your life. You can easily neglect your health, your relationships, and yourself. You can get stuck in "doing" mode, believing that only through all this action will you achieve success. You can lose sight of the fact that success is more than just about accomplishment, status, and money. It is hard not to let your work consume you.
What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?
- Do your homework: interview business owners to find out if owning a business is for you.
- Get help, a business coach, for example.
- Then, turn inwards and listen to the expert inside of you to guide you. The buck stops with you.
Is there anything else you'd like to share?
Don't underestimate your own intuition. Getting help to grow your business has its function. However, putting more stock into what others' opinions are and what they tell you to do will never get you the success you really want.
Where can people find you and your business?
Website: https://www.francescadattilo.com/
Facebook: https://bit.ly/3MCLSJ6
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/francescadattilo/
If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solopreneur that you'd like to share, then email community@subkit.com; we'd love to feature your journey on these pages.
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